Catching Fire And Burning Down
by Tare-Bear
Summary: The effect it has on him is nothing short of satisfying.  But wrong, so, so wrong, and different and not me. It's the hunger. The side of me that I didn't think would be. That wants things like this; nakedness, beds, Peeta. And so it's not really me, who reaches out and grasps his wrist when he makes to stand and leave, it's the want. The fire begging for more fuel. *Rewritten*
1. Chapter One

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: This is far overdue. I should have fixed this story a long time ago, but I'm doing it now. I'm sorry if you prefer the old one, but even so, I would love to hear your feedback in a review. It will be largely different from the original story I wrote.. I want to build her up to actually having sex with Peeta, unlike the one where I made it happen all in one fell swoop. Sorry for typos. Thank you for reading, enjoy. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter One<p>

The air is bitingly cold when I step outside in the open, gasping for breath. Dew ridden blades of grass fly underneath my feet, soaking my socks in minutes. Once I hit the pavement they're numb enough to ignore the juts of rocks or cracks, while on my hand there is a throbbing, warm wetness that stings painfully. I know it's from shattering the window of the cellar underneath the empty victor's house, but that's behind me. The selfishness has been forgotten and now all I can do is sprint and out do Peeta.

For once in my life, I want to do better than Peeta. I want to feel as if I deserved what he gives me and I have to reach Haymitch before him. Before he can make Haymitch promise to stay behind in District 12 while he will follow me into yet another arena. To protect me. And this time, to never come back out.

When I crash through Haymitch's door, staggering through his home's front hallway, I dive towards the only illumination in the entire house. A small, lantern of light blooming from the kitchen. He's sitting alone at the kitchen table a half-empty bottle of white liquor in one fist, his knife in the other. Drunk as a skunk.

"Ah, there she is. All tuckered out. Finally did the math, did you, sweetheart? Worked out you won't be going in alone? And now you're here to ask me.. what?" he says.

I don't answer. The window on the far side of the room is thrown open and the wind rushing in chills me just the same as if I were standing outside. I'm panting from the run, but it's not why I lower my head and eyes, to stare at the slow, drops of blood falling from my arm and spotting his kitchen floor. I've hit a wall. I want to turn back, go find my mother and my sister and comfort them like I should be doing. They need me, now, not this drunken fool. The spiteful man who has been spitting disapproval and sarcasm since the Victory Tour at me and my ideas...

"I'll admit, it was easier for the boy. He was here before I could snap the seal on a bottle. Begging me for another chance to go in. But what can you say?" He mocks me in slurs, mimicking my voice. "'Take his place, Haymitch, because all things being equal, I'd rather Peeta had a crack at the rest of his life than you?'"

I bite my lip because once he said it, it is seeping through all my thoughts. I'm afraid I might just ask that exact thing. Then I think.. is that really what I want? For Peeta to live and for Haymitch to die?

Haymitch was dreadful, of course, but he is my family now. I can't make him do this. It is my selfishness all over again. There is no excuse for me to simply claim his life for Peeta's. Peeta still out did me. He has done it once more. He jumped over my wants and my choices, and he did it all without selfishness. Even better! He did it with selfless life sacrifice.

What did I come here for? I knew it was too late, why did I ever try? Come on Katniss, what could you possibly want by coming here? "I came for a drink," I croak, finally.

Haymitch bursts out laughing and slams the bottle on the table before me. I run a blood-free sleeve across the top of it and take a couple gulps before I come up choking. It goes down burning my throat. It takes a few minute to compose myself, and even then my eyes and nose are still streaming. But inside me, the liquor feels like fire and I like it.

"Maybe it should be you," I say matter-of-factly. I could feel the alcohol melt into my veins, turning into a sear that makes my skin tingle. "You hate life, anyway," I add, pulling up a chair.

"Very true," says Haymitch. "And since last time I tried to keep you alive... seems like I'm obligated to save the boy this time."

"That's another good point," I say, wiping my nose and taking another long drink from the bottle.

"Peeta's argument is that since I chose you, I now owe him. Anything he wants. And what he wants is the chance to go in again to protect you," Haymitch says.

I knew it. In this way, Peeta's not hard to predict. While I was wallowing around on the floor of that cellar, thinking of myself, he was here, thinking only of me. Shame isn't a strong enough word for what I feel.

"You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know," Haymitch says.

"Yeah, yeah," I say, but that thought hung up on my mind. It has always been there. How could a person accept something they don't deserve? How could said person, gain enough to actually deserve them? I didn't want to let Haymitch see how this effected me and I continue on talking without pause, "No question, he's the superior one in this trio. So, what are you going to do?"

I had been hoping he would give me advice to answer my own questions, but I guess that's Haymitch for you, no help at all. "I don't know," he sighs. "Go back in with you maybe, if I can. If my name's drawn at the reaping, it won't matter. He'll just volunteer to take my place."

We sit in silence, while my mind continues to nag me. Maybe he's right, maybe I'll never deserve him no matter what I tried. But do I really need to deserve him to give in? Love was an equal thing, or so I've come to think, as little of love as I tend to think of it. Peeta's love, though, is wholeheartedly one sided. At least, it has been for elven years. Maybe I've had it all wrong.

My mind struggles to dive more into the concept, but it is slightly fuzzy. The fire in my veins pulses in my head and makes it seem heavy on my neck. Do I really care? No, not really. Love me if he wants, if he can accept that I'm not ready. Yet... of course, he's my friend. I can save him, merely because I don't want him to die. Not for love, not like the country thinks... my mind grows so murky with unfocused thoughts, that I force it all out. "It'll be bad for you in the arena, wouldn't it? Knowing all the others?" I ask.

"Oh, I think we can count on it being unbearable wherever I am." He nods at the bottle, clenched in my fist. "Can I have that back now?"

"No," I say, hunching over it. Haymitch shrugs and pulls another bottle out from under the table. He gives the top a twist and takes no hesitation in swinging it back. As he does that, I realize I am not just here for a drink. Somewhere in my mind, it'd been trying to conjure up a selfless request. It's hard to find the words, the right ones, but eventually I manage to say, "I've figured out what I'm asking. If it has to be Peeta and me in the Games, this time we try to keep him alive."

There. The question contains no selfishness. No ask for sacrifice from another or to deem pain on one of my family members. I feel satisfaction for a mere second, until I see something flicker across Haymitch's bloodshot eyes.

Pain.

"Like you said, it's going to be bad no matter how you slice it. And whatever Peeta wants, it's his turn to be saved. We both owe him that." My voice comes out pleading, slightly slurred. "Besides, the Capitol hates me so much, I'm as good as dead now. He still might have a chance. Please Haymitch. Say you'll help me." I don't like pleading, it's a weak thing to do, the last thing I want to do. Even when I was starving I hadn't turned to begging on street corners. But this seemed to be okay, if it is for Peeta, and that makes me feel better about it. The liquor helps.

Haymitch frowns down at his bottle, weighing my words. "All right," he says after a long pause of silence.

And just like that I can breathe again. "Thanks," I say. I should go see Peeta now, but I don't think I want to. My head's spinning from the drink, and I'm so wiped out, who knows what he could get me to agree to? Except the thought of facing my mother and Prim is worse. They will want hugs and kisses and words, that I'm not even able to choke out, let alone reassure. Besides, I should check on him. Haymitch seems to think he acted fine, but I just don't believe that. I remember what he looked like that first reaping, haggard, crest-fallen, and he had been crying on our way to the train.

As I step away from the table, taking the bottle with me, I tangle the bleeding hand into the bottom of my shirt. I stagger outside and along the houses, passing the front of mine. I see shadows in the front window across the drawn curtains, more than just the regular two and I know Gale must be there. Another obstacle I'm unable to face at the moment. I don't want a crying Prim to coddle, a furious Gale pacing at my back and the shadow of the deaf and blind woman my mother used to be. The very thought has my stomach turning. Instead, I hurry across my yard towards Peeta's front steps.

I am having trouble focusing, the liquor sloshes out of the bottle in my unsteady walk, slipping down my arm as I attempt to turn his doorknob. After the third try it swings open and I find myself wandering inside the front pallor, then through his empty, dark kitchen. I hadn't knocked or rung the bell, so I didn't think he would come running but what I don't expect is that there is no sign of Peeta, no lights are on. I call to him, but there is no answer. Had he gone out? Where would he go? Home? That makes sense, that he would go to comfort his family, something I couldn't do.

It almost makes me want to go to them, to check how they are handling this, but I just want this one night, one more hour. Enough time to accept that I am going back. Back, to the arena. Into hell one more time over and this time not to escape. President Snow will have most likely ordered me to be put to death this time around, my chances at winning are as low as they had been for Prim when she was reaped. I am going back, to die.

The thought makes me drink another long draught, and I stumble upstairs, since downstairs just seems so gloomy. At the top, through a crack of a door, a stream of light falls across the hallway and I move toward it, hoping maybe Peeta is home.

"Peeta?" I say. Lightly, I use a hand to push open the door, and wait tensely, my other fingers fumbling to keep a tight grasp on the bottle. There is no answer and my eyes sweep the room, the dark bathroom to the side, the empty tangled bed of blankets. Nothing.

There is a paint canvass set up next to his bed, so I move toward it curiously, sitting heavily on the edge, eying his newest and unfinished work. There are other paintings scattered across the floor and a mess of spilt paint laying underneath them, but I only move around them with my steps, wondering, what happened here? The unfinished one looks like the beginnings of the horizon, green paint in the allure of treetops, but anything else for it is blank. After a moment of deliberation, I take another drink of alcohol then slip off the bed and onto my knees. I reach a tingling hand towards the mess, to flip over one of the down turned pictures. For one moment I think maybe I shouldn't be doing this, or be there, in his room, without him knowing, but I already know he won't care. Peeta wouldn't mind if I set his house on fire.

Gray splatters of paint stained the first one so terribly I couldn't make out the pencil sketch, as a result I reach for a second. The second one is clear. I frown at the drawing and I feel my mind throbbing against my skull, trying to understand. He's in the picture, I know by the stocky figure, the waves of blonde hair, the strong jaw. It is a picture of Peeta, and me.

It is the picture of us in the Hunger Game, with me laying unconscious and huddled in a sleeping bag within our haven of a cave. In the background lays dark, murky outlines with jutted rocks and even further beyond that a sketch of rain clashing over the entrance. Next to me sits Peeta, slumped against the cave wall, his eyes closed and his face clear of any lines. Only one of his hands is touching me, laying over my forehead, petting back my hair.

I can remember it even now. The coldness of those days. Enough to creep into your bones and stiff your joints. The terrible ache in my head from the Careers and the feast. The anticipation coiled in my gut for his recovery. Waking up and falling asleep to the comfort, an old childhood comfort my mother used to give me, of someone's soft fingers smoothing back my hair. But why? It isn't a particular gruesome picture, like the others he would make of Clove or Cato. So why? Why would it be on the floor?

I reach for another, this time it is of him and I walking through the trees, him barefoot and me holding my bow, scowling. Then the next, Peeta and me, sitting at the edge of the stream, his leg sickly looking and me working to heal it. And it continues, all of them, though some are so soaked up in the spilt paint that they're unrecognizable, I know that it must be of us. Suddenly, I stand, forgetting the black head rush it causes and go toward his desk that is overflowing with scattered papers and art supplies. I leaf through folders and unorganized stacks, some of them are just nature, others of sunsets, Rue, the mutts, a golden cornucopia sitting in the middle of a clearing, bloody arrows or spears, dying Foxface and berries.

Nothing else, only that. None of them containing me. Those are all on the floor. I don't know why, maybe it was an accident, except it doesn't feel like it is. Dread and guilt and awfulness roils up inside my chest until all I can do is curl up around the liquor bottle I left on the floor. Paint gets in my hair and on my face, but I don't care. I decide to wait. Wait for Peeta and ask him what happened here. I want to know, even if it's as awful as I think it is, why he wouldn't want to look at these picture anymore. Because of me? Because he blames me for the Quarter Quell? Blames me for ruining his life? Or because he's sick of my ignorance, the way I pretended?

It isn't long at all before I hear the front door slam and I sit up, my head whirling, my stomach churning. I hear something drop downstairs, then footsteps on the stairs, running up them two at a time. They seem in a flurry. Then, there's Peeta, standing in the door way, the light illuminating his frowning, weary face.

"Katniss?" He paces into the room, eyes roaming around, then back on me. He kneels in front of me before I can even reply and he takes my hand into his. "I saw the blood downstairs, and on the front door. Are you okay? What happened?"

"I.." and he didn't wait for me to finish before pulling me to my feet and pushing me down on the edge of the bed.

"Wait, I'll get something to clean it."

It's started to sting again, as the open air reaches the slices and I try to pull it away, tuck it back around my dirty shirt but Peeta returns with an arm full of supplies and pulls it back out. My alcohol consumed mind struggles to understand why I don't like this, but soon it dawns on me. He's taking care of me. _Again_. It seems stupid, idiotic to my survival trained mind to be so giving, so open to betrayal and consequence. There is that, in one sense, then the other sense where it almost makes me admire him, because I can never be that person. Maybe Prim, I hope that for her, but me? No, I'm worse than Haymitch, and that thought brings the bottle back to my lips, downing every last drop just before Peeta rips it away.

"Since when do you drink?" he says. No malice, but an earnest lilt to his tone.

"Since now," I say, trying futilely to grab it back, then he rips out a particularly big piece of glass. "Ow!"

"Sorry." Peeta doesn't sound very apologetic, but he continues to pick at the glass across my savaged palm. He's kneeling in front of me, his head ducked close to my appendage held propped up by another of his. They're soft, slow, tantalizingly precise. Moved with gracefully, unshaken actions and looking as if he has been made to do this. The careful hands of a baker, not as sure or swift as a healers like my mother's would be but sweet in their intent.

I hiss when Peeta uses the rubbing alcohol to clean away the blood, then I struggle to keep the room from spinning at the same time. There is a foul, yet bitterly sweet taste in the back of my throat, that makes me want more. Just as I move to rise, looking down at Peeta I notice the smear of paint along his jaw and all down the front of his shirt, just like the mess of the floor.

"What happened?" I ask, waving my newly bandaged hand towards the disorder

"Nothing to worry about," says Peeta. "Just slipped from my hands." He stands back up, gathering the supplies and disappearing through the bathroom door.

But I know that's not true, his hands are perfect. "Where were you?"

There's a shuffling movement from inside, then he calls back, "I went to my brothers. He was worried." Peeta's face reappears around the door frame, "Were you waiting long?"

"No," I say, and he slips back out of sight. My lips feel dry and plump at the same time, so I lick them, uncertainly. He's lying, twice now. First about the paintings and now about visiting Haymitch. Peeta returns to the room wearing a new shirt, not blood or paint stained, and pauses half way to me, crossing his arms around his chest. Almost as if he's uncomfortable that I am here at all. "Katniss, what are you doing here?" Peeta asks.

_What am I doing here? _I don't know, at all. I meant to check on him, but already he's helped me more than I have him. I just had to come. There are just things that only he would get. Things that my family wouldn't. "Haymitch told me what you said," I say.

Peeta frowns, the expression forming a large, unnatural V between his eyebrows. "He did, did he? And I can see he shared a little more than that, too." He waves a hand towards the empty liquor bottle sitting at my feet.

A feral, mean and snapping reply comes to mind, sitting on the tip of my tongue but I swallow it back. I don't want to fight with him. After all these weeks and months after the Hunger Games and then the Victory Tour, it's almost too unfair for me to become that way.

"Katniss," Peeta says, then deliberates... unsure.

I look up at him, like a guilty child caught doing something bad. I swallow tightly. "Do you miss it?" I croak. I didn't know what I intended by it at first, my mind was branching out in a lot of different directions.

One of them thought of the lingering touches and meaningless kisses, the arena, the first Hunger Games. Those parts of me feel guilty about that, and the other, and much smaller half, was reminiscent. But the guilt is obsolete, worse than all the rest. So large, that it makes me think of today all over again. My reaction compared to his. I go to be alone, wallowing in my own self-importance and grief, while he went to make sure Haymitch would save me, then to his family immediately after, because he thought they would be worried.

"I can't say I miss the lies," Peeta replies to my question. He doesn't miss the fighting, the death, or my kisses. He only means to be a good person. No, he doesn't even have to try, it is all natural. Though it's not natural. My reactions are sane, normal, and his are strange, to say the least. A constant puzzle. Peeta Mellark will always be a puzzle for me, something I can't figure out. Especially when I'm drunk. It only gives me the most obnoxious headache in the world.

I attempt to stand, not wanting to talk any long, but my knees shake and give out the same second. Peeta rushes forward, his arms catching me around the waist, steadying me, as my palms smack against his chest.

"I should take you home," he murmurs.

No. I don't want to go home. There will be mother and Prim, crying and sad... I don't want that. Sadness to compete with my guilt, or the already known fact of my death. I want to save their meeting until the morning. I try to tell him this, but my mouth has gone dry and the words too jumbled to come out.

Peeta begins to tighten an arm around my waist and pull me towards the door, but I plant my feet, my hands crawling up his chest and around his neck. My cheek rests against his collarbone and I breathe in the inevitable, intoxicating scent of him. It is licorice and nutmeg, musk and the slightly aromatic scent of paint, sugar cookies and burnt bread. My weight threatens to unseat his artificial leg, so Peeta moves his hands and braces them against my lower back.

"Katniss," Peeta says, uncomfortably. "You need to go. I can't let you stay here tonight.."

I want to say sorry. For hurting him so much, for all the lies and deceit. I wish, through the fog of fire in my veins and drunkenness of his smell, to tell him that I'm grateful for his love, for the comfort... for everything, if anything at all. I just want him to know, that I didn't mean to do it, that the berries were not only because of rebellion, he was a part of it, too.

"Katniss," Peeta whispers. "You're drunk."

Yes, I know. But he is so close, so tempting. How can I resist? I am finally allowing myself to see. To see how truly cruel I really am. I have been trying to lie to myself, about who I am, about what I'm doing. How could Peeta love me? He obviously didn't know me. And he offered me comfort, no pay back. Peeta has given me life, hope, love, and I have given him only a scowl, lies, and poisonous berries that brought the wrath of the Capitol down upon his neck.

"Peeta," I say, breathe, wiggling myself free enough to have my own air. His eyes are so blue right now, that I struggle to remember what I meant to ask. "Can I show you something?"

"Show me something?" Peeta repeats. "Like what? Where?"

Wordlessly I take his hand and pull him toward the door, down the stairs and outside. It's still dark, the moon high in the sky and the stars winking distantly. The air is cool and crisp and it's like breathing in an air of sobriety. My words do not even slur when I tell him to keep up and be quiet.

Peeta makes no move to ask questions, and for that I'm grateful. There are no Peacekeepers out, no one in the Seam is in the spirit to celebrate the Quarter Quell, all is deathly silent. The meadow is swaying in the light breeze, a field of welcome but eerie in its serenity.

The only time Peeta rebukes is when I pause at the electric gate to hear that it's out this night, the first of few since the crack down. He gives me a sharp look of uncertainty but I shake my head to reassure him. If it was on, I'd be the first one to turn back, and if I thought that the Head Peacekeeper Thread might attempt to lock me out again, then I wouldn't have brought Peeta. "Trust me," I say and slip easily underneath the usual place of uprooted fence.

Peeta takes a few more seconds to get through, his new shirt already beginning to get dirty. We continue through the edge of the forest, until Peeta abruptly stops, planting himself in the spot, gazing about himself.

"You like it," I say.

"Yes," Peeta whispers, as if afraid to disrupt the sight. "It's different from the arena.."

"That's the thing about not having twenty-three others out to kill you, places start to look better and a lot less threatening."

Peeta lowers his gaze to mine. "Twenty-two," he corrects. "You only had to worry about twenty-two."

"I know."

From there, it is nothing but silence, as he returns to my side and I move to give him a tour. I chose to take the usual snare trail that Gale and I walk, just so I can point out interesting landmarks or familiar trees and bushes. I show him an owls nest nearer the west edge of our path and he forces me to hold my breath, so I can hear what he did; the soft hoot, of the recently hatched spring-ling babies. Winter was certainly passing quickly, almost as quickly as my life is. Soon, before even the Primroses are in full bloom I'll be in an arena, who knows where.

Peeta is leaning over a small outcrop, standing on his toes. There is a stream that runs down there, the soft tinkling sound better than any piano song Madge had ever played for me. The moon is large, silver and soft against the reflection, staining the world white and black and precious. It is almost a dream, the way Peeta spins around to beam at me, confessing a wish to draw it. "I'm glad," I say. My eyes look at his hands, and then back up at him.

"Why'd you show me?" he asks.

"I'm not done, there's still more," I say in return. I turn to lead Peeta elsewhere, and he bounds to my side in moments, taking my hand, wordless.

I tell him to sit, close his eyes, and he does, surrounded by the grassy sward that I've brought him to. My father's hunting bow, my favorite one with the polished shine and well-loved dark wooden exterior is right where I left it, and I retrieve the bow and then the single arrow next to it, from inside a hollow log nearby. Swiping away the leaves and sparse dirt from the bow, I take a seat directly across Peeta. With one hand I place the bow across his legs and hide the arrow behind my back in the other.

"Can I open them?"

"Yes."

Peeta examines the weapon with infinite care. "What is it?"

"A bow," I say, resisting the urge to roll my eyes.

"It looks expansive."

"It was my fathers, the one he used the most. He would polish it after every hunt, I don't know what with, but I remember he loved that bow very much."

Peeta gazes upon my expressionless face, then looks at the arm I have behind me. "What else?"

"Something stupid," I say, pulling it out. I run a thumb along the feathers, fraying them, but they immediately go back into place. I feel a heat crawling up my neck, the next words surprisingly difficult to get out. "An arrow, the only one that he's made that I have left. I hid it from Gale. I didn't want to lose it, you know?"

"I think I can understand."

My shoulders pivot to point away and towards the ground, my braid falling against the left side of my jaw. If it was loose, I would be able to hide behind a curtain of hair. "You don't. It's stupid, I know, it's just an arrow. But..."

"But?" Peeta prompts and I feel him lean in a little closer.

"But it feels like him. He made it..." but that's all I could finish, the words had become harder and harder and now I couldn't bear to say anything else, lest I'd die of humiliation or the uneasy feeling in my chest. So I plucked the bow from his lap and stood swiftly, tucking them away from sight again. When I return to Peeta, seating myself skittishly, arms wound tightly about my stomach, a light smiles traces his lips.

"Stop it," I snap.

"Stop what?"

"Stop.." _Laughing at me? Mocking me? _"Just stop."

There is a long pause, where there is only the soft rush of the stream nearby and the hoots of the owls. An orchestra of crickets tweeted and cricked nearby, bringing back the dual headache of the alcohol that had sat almost forgotten. But I felt alone with Peeta. Truly, completely alone, with no Panem peering in or President Snow breathing over my shoulder. "I wanted to show you my home. My real home." I lift my head to gaze at him and he holds my eyes steadily. "I feel like I know so much about you, that you've given up everything to me freely and I've just bottled it all up from sight. I just want to let you in, for once. For real. That's why I had to bring you out here, because otherwise, it's not real."

Peeta says nothing, only stares at me.. so long that I look at the ground again, running my bandaged fingers through the blades, nervously.

"Thank you," Peeta says, softly, finally.

I shrug. Then, I hear him moving across the ground toward me, and his hand crawls on top of my fidgeting one. He pulls it gently into his lap and interweaves and unweaves our fingers there. "There's... a closet, in my house. Not the victor one, but my old house, above the bakery. It's full of old things, junk really, boxes of silverware my father got when my grandmother died and old pictures of my brothers and me." Peeta's voice is no more than a whisper, and slowly, infinity slowly, he raises my hand to his face and momentarily rests his lips there. "I used to hide there. When she would get really bad..." his eyes close. The hot breath fanning across my skin gives me shudders. "And she would never find me, because she didn't know I knew where it was. I used to think that closet was the best place ever, and I still love it, drafty and cold and lonely as it is..." He pauses. I move my hand to unfold and rest along the side of his face, and he gives a breathless laugh. "It's stupid, really."

"No, it's not stupid."

"It is," Peeta sighs, pulling himself back up and my hand away from his face. We are level again and I feel my stomach withering, thinking again of that day when our eyes briefly met across the school yard. The ugly, purple swollen side of his face.

"You were starving and hunting at the same age. You weren't afraid of facing wild dogs or bees.. or bears! All the while I was hiding in little rooms. Sounds cowardly to me," Peeta says, smiling weakly. "You're braver."

"Not really," I admit. "You didn't run and hide like I did earlier."

"Doesn't mean I'm not terrified."

I could taste the fear of rejection and of consequence in my mouth, metallic, rusty, complete insanity. I regret taking him out here, yet at the same time I don't. I feel vulnerable, the tear that my father's death left in my heart now always in Peeta's sight, forever. He'll always know about the insignificant, but entirely important to me, bow and arrow out here. What if he told someone? Why can't I bear to let him know about this weak spot? Why do I want to run, run and forget him completely, pretend this never happened, but my heart is pounding at the same time?

Without warning, I kiss Peeta.

His lips, pressed firmly against mine, are a surprise. They're warm, light as breath, firm as the give of a peach against my mouth. A stronger scent of everything I smelt earlier, plus dirt and the grass and the fresh spring air fill my lungs. A smell that makes my stomach drop through my feet. A smell that replaces the bitter remains of alcohol in my mouth and supercedes all thought in my mind with an overpowering hunger for more.

Peeta's tongue slips between my lips for a second, jarring me. I push away, gasping, my face going blood-red. He looks guilty. He tries to pull away, but my fingers tighten around his hand still in mine, stalling him.

"You told Haymitch that you want him to save me, again," I rush out.

"I can't let you die," Peeta replies, just as fast. "You have something to live for, I don't."

"What do you mean?" I say, my voice sharper now. "'You have nothing to live for?'"

"Your family needs you, Katniss," Peeta says. "I don't want you forgetting how different our circumstances are. If you die, and I live, there's no life for me at all back in District Twelve. You're my whole life. I would never be happy again." I start to object but he puts a finger to my lips. "It's different for you. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard. But there are other people who'd make your life worth living."

My head is still fuzzy from the drink, and Peeta holds such a strong stare. I think of my family. My mother. My sister. And my pretend cousin Gale. But Peeta's intention is clear. That Gale really is my family, or will be one day, if I live. That I'll marry him. So Peeta's giving me his life and Gale at the same time. To let me know I shouldn't ever have doubts about it. Everything. That's what Peeta wants me to take from him.

"No one really needs me," Peeta continues to say, and there's no self-pity in his voice. It's true his family doesn't need him. They will mourn him, as will a handful of friends. But they will get on. Even Haymitch, with the help of a lot of white liquor, will get on. I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.

"I do," I say. "I need you." He looks upset, takes a deep breath as if to begin a long argument, and that's no good, no good at all, because he'll start going on about Prim and my mother and everything and I'll just get confused. So before he can talk, I stop his lips with a kiss.

He slips his hand behind my neck, pulling me gently toward him, until are bodies are plastered together. Fingers twine into my braid, loosening it, his nails running along my scalp. For a minute my eyes are closed and there is nothing but this boy. Peeta. The one I need. Rustling deep in my soul, a fire buried inside me is rearing to the surface. It is so new I almost break away. Except a hunger opens up in me at the same time, keeping me in place, and this is not like the Victory Tour kisses. Only once in our first Hunger Games was there anything akin to this, but my head wound got in the way and ended it before I could understand.

This time, there is nothing but us to interrupt us. And after a few attempts, Peeta gives up on talking. The sensation inside me grows warmer and spreads out from my chest, down through my body, out along my arms and legs, to the tips my being. Instead of satisfying me, the kisses have the opposite effect, of making my need greater. I thought I was something of an expect on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind.

Just as my back starts to ache from leaning forward so much, Peeta's hands move out of mine and from my hair, so he can lift me into his lap, my legs shifting instinctively around his waist, our lips never parting once. I feel lightheaded and fully alert all in one, and the chorus of the night around us strums along with my hammering heart.

After the need for air becomes apparent, Peeta breaks away. His face moves to pivot between my jaw and shoulder almost immediately, his kisses continuing hot and heavy against the side of my neck. It is so sudden, so new, an embarrassing noise escapes my mouth and Peeta pulls back.

"I'm sorry," he says, flushed. "I didn't.."

"No, it's okay," I say, as breathless as him.

"Katniss," Peeta whispers some minutes later, his hot breath running down my neck. "You're drunk."

"No," I say, stubbornly, then I pull his face up with the hand that isn't against the back of his neck and press my lips to his. "I'm not, really." I stare at him, trying to convince him. "_Really_."

"Katniss," Peeta warns, "just think." Think? About what? I am thinking. I'm thinking about how new the taste of him is, and about how the craving to give back throbs in the back of my mind. I hate owing people. Does he know how much I owe him? Won't he just understand that I mean it?

I guess I should expect that. He trusted me before, during the Games and it ended up I was only pretending to love him to save myself. Now, Peeta's trained to think that I don't mean anything I do, alternatively he has to ponder about the nearest possible thing it could be about. Instead of the less obvious, he goes for the more selfish option. Blame the alcohol, because I'm freely kissing him without cameras. Pawn off the reason I'm letting him do something new, because I'm trying to manipulate him. To make him fall for it again, just so I can get what I want; his survival.

"You don't trust me?" I say next.

Peeta's expression turns earnest. "We shouldn't be doing this."

My lips are still warm from the kiss and the smell remains in my lungs. I want to taste his lips again, desperately. But I shove away this new hunger, swallow it like a child chokes back bitter medicine. "Fine," I snap, untangling myself from him. It hurt, a little, for him not to trust me. "Then let's go. I don't even want to be here anymore."

Peeta follows me, but a constant five yards lagging, and doesn't utters a single word to me when I stand beyond the lifeless fence, waiting for him. The moment he's inside District 12, safe from the outside and the law, I run across the meadow and I don't look back. I assume he'll make it home, I don't really care.

As I stagger up the steps to my house, the front door opens and Gale pulls me into his arms. "I was wrong. We should have gone when you said," he whispers.

"No," I say. I'm having trouble focusing, and my throat tightens, the pressure behind my eyes threatening me with tears. I'm not sure if it's because of Peeta or because over Gale's shoulder, I see my mother and Prim clutching each other in the doorway.

"It's not too late," he says.

We run. They die. And now I've got Peeta to protect. End of discussion. "Yeah it is." My knees give way and he's holding me up. I feel a choked sob escape my throat, and the headache that had been warded off completely overcomes me. This seems appropriate since the world is determined to make my life one big tragedy.

When I wake up, I barely get to the toilet before the white liquor makes its reappearance. It burns just as much coming up as it did going down, and tastes twice as bad. I'm trembling and sweaty when I finish vomiting, but at least most of the stuff is out of my system. Enough made it into my bloodstream, though, to result in a pounding headache, parched mouth, and boiling stomach. I turn on the shower and stand under the warm rain for a minute before I realize I'm still in my underclothes.

My mother must have just stripped off my filthy outer ones and tucked me in bed. I throw the wet undergarments into the sink and pour shampoo on my head. My hands sting, and that's when I notice the stitches, small and even, across one palm and up the side of the other hand. Vaguely I remember breaking that glass window last night. Then I think of Peeta, the mediocre bandages that were there before, then all of last night comes rushing in. It makes me feel restless, unsettled. I remember the kisses, the bow, arrow... that awful closet.

In seconds it is like my heart swells for him, choking me and the emotions in it were brimming over the edge, teetering like a liquid about to spill from a overflowing glass. I do not like the feel at all. It is incomplete, like something misplaced. It is almost painful, actually. My hand slips from my hair, and lay at rest just on the side of my neck, rubbing a sore spot there. I don't like it. All of it is disconcerting. New. New is bad. New is foreign and unknown. And as I towel myself down, I think of that look on his face, when he stared earnestly back at me. When he wouldn't admit that he didn't trust me, but I knew. I could tell. And it hurt.

I don't want to think of them, they only reminded me of the upcoming Hunger Games. Instead, finally clean, I pull on my robe and head back to bed, ignoring my dripping hair. I climb under the blankets, sure this is what it must feel like to be poisoned. The footsteps on the stairs renew my panic from last night. I'm not ready to see my mother and Prim.

I have to pull myself together to be calm and reassuring, the way I was when we said our good-byes the day of the last reaping. I have to be strong. I struggle into an upright position, push my wet hair off my throbbing temples, and brace myself for this meeting. They appear in the doorway, holding tea and toast, their faces filled with concern. I open my mouth, planning to start off with some kind of joke, and burst into tears.

So much for being strong.

My mother sits on the side of the bed and Prim crawls right up next to me and they hold me, making quiet soothing sounds, until I am mostly cried out. Then Prim gets a towel and dries my hair, combing out the knots, while my mother coaxes tea and toast into me. They dress me in warm pajamas and layer more blankets on me and I drift off again.

I can tell by the light it's late afternoon when I come round again. There's a glass of water on my bedside table and I gulp it down thirstily. My stomach and head still feel rocky, but much better than they did earlier. I rise, dress, and braid back my hair. Before I go down, I pause at the top of the stairs, feeling slightly embarrassed about the way I've handled the news of the Quarter Quell. My erratic flight, drinking with Haymitch, weeping, going into the woods with Peeta. Given the circumstances, I guess I deserve one day of indulgence. I'm glad the cameras weren't here for it, though.

Downstairs, my mother and Prim embrace me again, but they're not overly emotional. I know they are holding back. Looking at Prim's face, it's hard to believe she is the same little duckling I left nine months ago. The combination of that ordeal and all that has followed – the cruelty in the district, the parade of sick and wounded that she often treats by herself if Mother's hands are too full, the new me – these things have aged her years. Wasn't that what I was trying to prevent? Hadn't I taken her place in the reaping to spare her a dead childhood and an inevitable strain on her hands?

But I must see that she has grown, too. We're practically the same height now, but that wasn't what made her seem so much older. It is something in her eyes, they are no longer the same innocent, wide abyss of blue they were not too long ago. They're composed, knowledgeable.

I have to be strong now, more than ever. Stronger than her. I smile at Prim, weakly, and she returns it with a beam. "How's school?" The only subject I can think of that does not involve the Hunger Games.

"The same. We're learning about the four main types of coal. Lignite, subbituminous, bituminous, and anthracite." Prim still rocks on the tips of her toes, especially when she's trying to remember things, and I think of Rue the same way someone takes a fist in the face. "The coal value is determined by the amount of the carbon it contains... I think."

"That's right," our mother interjects. "Exactly right."

And now I'm thinking of father, and I know Mother is, too, because she stares at the pot of stew in front of her like it's as deep as an ocean. I know I can't slip away, not now. There's still a reason to fight. I remember Gale's words: if the people have the courage, then there will still be something we could do. There are still things I can do. I don't know what they are yet, but since I started this, I could contribute, surely. I have to remember, even when the fear threatens to swallow me up, that I still must fight. What ever I end up being, or doing, or the happenings of these Games, I still have to fight. I have to be strong for the others. It's not too late for Prim. Sweet Prim, or Rory, or Vick and little Posy. They still have something of themselves. They are better than me. And the remembrance of our lost fathers suddenly rears into my face, knowing they have lost, too, but Prim is ignorant to it, eating her bowl of stew silently. I don't know how to help, but for now, I have to be an example.

For a long while after I sit beside Prim, my fingers stroking through her hair and talking occasionally, as we wait patiently together for our mother to return to us.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

**_Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended._**

_A/N: I don't know anyones personal view of Prim, but I tried to capture her as best as I could. I'm hoping for positive feedback. That would be really great and make my entire day, no matter what day it is. In this chapter I wanted to accentuate Prim and Katniss' relationship, even strengthen it a little. And of course, push and shove my favorite couple a little further into uncertainty on the point of physical love. (I know it may not seem like them, but to have this story, I have to build it somehow.) Thanks for reading, sorry for typos! Enjoy. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Two<p>

Finally, after Prim has finished her stew and has told me almost everything there is to tell, Mother stirs from the methodical sorting of vegetables and chopping meat to look up at me. "Hungry?" she asks and I nod wordlessly.

She ladles out a mug of broth for me, and I ask for a second mug to take to Haymitch. Then I walk across the lawn to his house. He's only just waking up and accepts the mug without comment. I push aside a worry that he might fall back on his words, or has even gone as far as forgetting them. We sit there almost peacefully, sipping our broth and watching the sun set through his living room window.

I hear someone walking around upstairs and assume it's Hazelle, but a few minutes later Peeta comes down. The want to flee out the door is tempting, but I settle on scowling at him across the distance as he comes and tosses a cardboard box of empty liquor bottles on the table. The whole time his eyes don't look at me, once. "There, it's done," he says, staring only at Haymitch.

It's taking all of Haymitch's effort though, just to focus his eyes on the bottles, so I speak up. "What's done?"

His eyes only drop to the bottles for a second, before lifting back to the old man at my side. "I've poured all the liquor down the drain."

This seems to jolt Haymitch out of his stupor, and he paws through the box in disbelief. "You what?"

"I tossed the lot," Peeta says.

"He'll just buy more," I mutter.

"No, he won't," says Peeta. "I tracked down Ripper this morning and told her I'd turn her in the second she sold to either of you." _He never wants me drunk again_. "I paid her off, too, just for good measure, but I don't think she's eager to be back in the Peacekeepers' custody."

Haymitch takes a swipe with his knife but Peeta deflects it so easily it's pathetic. Anger rises up in me suddenly. I was mystified by the way he has not managed to look at any part of me in this whole time. Angry or ashamed of what happened last night? Was I not the only one who wanted to forget the whole opening up and sharing stuff?

"What business is it of yours what he does?" I snap.

"It's completely my business. However it falls out, two of us are going in the arena again with the other as a mentor. We can't afford any drunkards on this team. Especially not you, Katniss."

"What?" I sputter after a minute. An indignation I knew I shouldn't have hit me. It would be more convincing if I wasn't still hung over, but I couldn't help that. "Last night's the only time I've ever been drunk."

"Yeah, and look at the shape you're in," Peeta says right back, looking at me for the first time. I was the first one to break eye contact, staring at the mug in my hands. I don't know what I expected from him after my race to get away last night. An apology, a little comfort maybe. Not this.

I turn to Haymitch. "Don't worry, I'll get you more liquor." I say it in spite of the blonde boy, just to show him that I won't be weak to this.

"Then I'll turn you both in. Let you sober up in the stocks."

"What's the point to this?" asks Haymitch.

"The point is that two of us are coming home from the Capitol. One mentor and one victor," says Peeta. "Effie's sending me recordings of all the living victors. We're going to watch their Games and learn everything we can about how they fight. We're going to put on weight and get strong. We're going to start acting like Careers. And one of us is going to be victor again whether you two like it or not!" He sweeps out of the room, slamming the front door.

Haymitch and I wince at the bang.

"I don't like self-righteous people," I say.

"What's to like?" says Haymitch, who begins sucking the dregs out of the empty bottles.

"You and me. That's who he plans on coming home."

"Well, then the jokes on him," says Haymitch.

Once the broth is gone, I eventually get up and walk over to Peeta's house. This time, I knock, and it takes a few minutes but Peeta answers. "If you're coming over to argue, don't bother," he says almost immediately, but that's all he has time to get out before I step forward and kiss him.

Peeta pulls away almost instantly, eyebrows dented. "What are you doing?"

"How am I suppose to gain your trust?" I ask. "When you can't even look me in the face?"

He's still confused by the experimental kiss. "That was nothing. I thought you were still angry... you don't want me to back off?"

"No, that's not the point," I say, frustrated. "If we're the ones in the arena together don't you think it's important that you trust me and I know you do?"

"I do trust you," Peeta says, and makes that sound like it's been really, very quite obvious.

I weigh that for a moment, then turn and leap down his front steps. I hear the door close just as I open mine, and go in search for my sister. There are only so many weeks I have left with her and I shouldn't waste them trying to puzzle out what has always been a mystery to me. I decide I don't care anymore, it doesn't matter.

After a few days, Haymitch and I agree to act like Careers, because this is the best way to get Peeta ready as well. Every night we watch the old recaps of the Games that the remaining victors won. I realize we never met any of them on the Victory Tour, which seems odd in retrospect. When I bring it up, Haymitch says the last thing President Snow would've wanted was to show Peeta and me – especially me – bonding with other victors in potentially rebellious districts.

Adjusting for age, I also realize some of our opponents may be elderly, which is both sad and reassuring. Peeta takes notes, Haymitch volunteers information on the victors' personalities, and slowly we begin to know our competition. Every morning we do exercises to strengthen our bodies. We run and lift things and stretch our muscles. Every afternoon we work on combat skills, throwing knives, fighting hand to hand; I even teach them to climb trees. Officially tributes aren't even supposed to train, but no one tries to stop us. District 1, 2, and 4 show up able to wield swords and spears. This is nothing in comparison.

On top of all that, there is the tension. I don't think Haymitch notices it, because after so many years of abuse his body resists improvement and he's paddling to keep up with us as it is, that a few extra glances or talks go below his radar. He's strong, but easily winded and can't aim. But thankfully he is so focused in his efforts that he can't tell that anytime Peeta and I are within a few feet of each other, he gets irritable and I get snappier.

It isn't like Peeta to be like that, though I guess it has to do mainly with me, being harsher to him than usual. I've never been mean to him, to say the least, there was only that time after the first Hunger Games that we fell into the cold, formal void, but that had never turned into cruel. This is different. We have not talked in private for days and we avoid any sort of touching, even when practice fighting, at all times. Sometimes I'll find myself unable to say anything at all. And even he stumbles on his words.

Otherwise, Peeta and I excel under the new regimen. It gives me something to do. It gives us all something to do besides accept defeat. My mother puts us on a special diet to gain weight. Prim treats our sore muscles. Madge sneaks us her father's Capitol newspapers. Predictions on who will be victor show us who is among the favorites.

Even Gale steps into the picture on Sundays, although he's got no love for Peeta or Haymitch, and he teaches us all he knows on snares. It's weird, beyond uncomfortable, being in conversation with both Peeta and Gale, but they seemed to have set aside whatever issues they had about me.

One night, as I'm walking Gale back into town, he admits, "It'd be better if he were easier to hate."

"Tell me about it," I say. "If I could've just hated him in the arena, we all wouldn't be in this mess now. He'd be dead, and I'd be happy little victor all by myself."

"And where would we be, Katniss?" asks Gale.

I pause, not knowing what to say. Where _would_ I be with my pretend cousin who wouldn't be my cousin if it weren't for Peeta? Would he have still kissed me and would I have kissed him back had I been free to do so? Would I have let myself open up to him, lulled by the security of money and food and the illusion of safety being a victor could bring under different circumstances? But there would still always be the reaping looming over us, over our children. No matter what I wanted.

"Hunting. Like every Sunday," I say. I know he didn't mean the question literally but this is as much as I can honestly give. I could not deny the sudden skip of a beat my heart does, thinking if I_had _killed Peeta or let him die. Gale knows I chose him over Peeta when I didn't make a run for it. To me, there's no point in talking about things that might have been.

Even if I killed Peeta, I still wouldn't have wanted to marry anyone. I only got engaged to save people's lives, and that completely backfired. I was afraid an emotional moment with Gale would bring back that stupid idea I had that night I brought Peeta into the woods, so I decided to lay off of his company as much as I could afterward.

On the third week of our training, I wake up to find Prim loitering around in my bedroom and by the door. I sit up, noticing how timid she looks and invite her to sit on my bed. "Is something wrong?" I ask.

Her fingers twist the end of one of her pigtail braids nervously. "You'd tell me if something was the matter, wouldn't you?"

"Of course," I say. There is something off in her tone, like she's been offended. The thought that someone might have hurt her causes me to grow more attentive. "Why? Have you heard something?"

"No... it's just... you never _tell _me things anymore. You know you can trust me, right? Because I would never tell anyone. And you've looked so upset lately, you hardly ever smile unless it's with me. Haymitch said you were being mean to Peeta, too. I'm not so little, you know. I'm almost fourteen, now. I can handle it. You don't have to worry about frightening me or anything..."

"Prim," I start, but then I stop, not knowing what I want to say. The look of hurt in her face increases until I can do nothing else but lean forward and clutch her head to my shoulder. Her arms slip effortlessly around my waist.

"You don't have to tell me," Prim whispers. "But you know you can, don't you?"

"Yes." I nod and screw my eyes shut, burying my face in her hair. "I know." _There are just so many things I don't want you to hear._ "I can handle them. You don't need to worry about me."

"But I do," Prim says. "I do all the time. I'm scared sometimes, when you leave the house that you won't come back. And now..."

"Shh." I rock her, one of my hands stroking the side of her face. "It'll be okay. Somehow. I'll figure something out, I always do."

"Yes, but let me help you," Prim begs. Her arms around me tighten. "I can help."

We pull away and I stare at Prim, until I know I have to say something. "What do I say?"

"Anything."

"I don't know."

"Tell me.. about what scares you."

Everything. You, me, Mother, Gale, President Snow, going back. "Something else."

Prim's hand rises, pulls out the tie holding my braid together, and flattens the crimped plait across my shoulder. Intently, as she runs her fingers through it and re-braids, she say, "Tell me about Peeta."

A long exasperated breath escapes me. This one is hard, but not as bad as her last request. If it were anyone else, then I would have left already, gone out to clear my head. But instead I look somewhere over Prim's head, trying to gather what I can share, what would be okay to say.

It suddenly occurs to me that I have no idea where Prim stands on the concept of Peeta and I. How much does she know? How much has she guessed, or has been told? Does she know that it really was all a sham? Did she really think I wanted to marry him?

"Peeta... is complicated."

"He loves you," Prim prompts. A hand of hers moves to pull a strand of hair out from behind my ear and, momentarily, her fingers brush up the side of my neck and I lean into them unconsciously. "I can see that. Everyone can." Her eyes find mine, inquiring, a million questions hidden there that she's been holding back. "I didn't know you knew him, before. But during... when you were with him, it seemed like you've known each other for years."

"I did, but not really," I say. "He helped me once, when you were too young to remember. It meant a lot, but I never thanked him for it. There was never a time. Then, the reaping.. and it just didn't seem..."

"No, I can get that," says Prim. The braid is finished, but she doesn't seem to like it, so she unties it, and begins all over again. "Peeta said that I should ask you, when I came to him, about why you two weren't talking after the Games..."

_Haymitch, Peeta, who else has she been talking to? Trying to get close to me, forced to talk to strangers just in the attempt? _"There was a misunderstanding."

"And there's another one, now? Because of the Quell?"

"Yes.. no. It's complicated." Prim curls her knees up under her and sits a little straighter.

"I can listen, I have time."

Girl talk, sharing my feelings, it's always been something I'm bad at. I struggle for a few moments, watching her watch the braid, then finally I draw a breath, steeling myself internally. _What do I tell her? The truth? A few stalling jokes? _"I care about him, he's my friend. You don't just go through something like we did, and not care. But I don't... I don't think I love him, not like he loves me. I don't think I can. Then there's Gale, and I love him, I have to. The things we've been through lasted so much longer and we were each other's best friend for so long, it wouldn't be fair that I disregard him. Except..."

"You care about Peeta?"

"Yes," I force myself to say. "I care."

"And the Quell, you've talked about it?"

I shift uncomfortably. "A little."

"What does he want?"

"To go in with me, make sure I win this time, only me..."

Prim looks over my face. "And you don't want him to die."

"No." I can't lie to her. "No, I don't want him to die. I'd rather–"

"You'd rather die for him," Prim finishes, with the words that I wouldn't have expressly used, but it's the truth. The braid this time is perfect and she flicks it behind my shoulder. "I won't be angry, you can say it."

"No, you should be. I shouldn't think about dying, leaving you here alone. You need me."

"I have Mother, and the Hawthornes," Prim says, sweetly. "I don't _need _you, Peeta does. He doesn't have anyone."

"He has a family and friends. And Haymitch," I correct, but it sounds stale. Prim lets the matter go.

"Are you mad because he wants to die for you? Or something else?" She knows me too well, I realize, when there really isn't a question to her statement.

"I'm not mad," I lie, smiling at her. "Just worried. Like I am now." I get up from the bed and begin to dig around for something decent to wear. "Haymitch and Peeta are going to come hound me if I'm not out in time for our run." I pause on my way into the bathroom, look back and Prim hasn't moved an inch. "Thank you.. for doing my hair."

She smiles shyly. "It's nothing." I close the bathroom door, brush my teeth, take off my pajamas and wiggle into the clean clothes. Even when I pause to splash some cold water into my face, I know she'll still be out there, waiting. "Thank you, for sharing," I hear her call, and I nod. Then I realize Prim couldn't see that.

"And you? There's nothing you want to share with me?"

I wait, pausing with the zipper of my jacket half-way up, before finally, Prim says, "Well, it's nothing big or worrisome. Not really. It's just..."

"Just?" I move to the door and pull it open. Prim is sitting in the middle of my bed, knees hugged to her chest, and I lean against the door way. "You can trust me."

"I know," says Prim. "You don't usually like talking about this, I know, but Mother gets so fidgety whenever I do. And all my friends they're... well they're not you." She bites her lip. "Rory, he's been..."

And everything in my mind comes tumbling over. I don't know what I expected my sister to ask me about, considering I hunt and she heals. We are so different I always thought, but by the telling blush in her cheeks I know that this has to do with all the complicated things in my life that I've never been able to sort out. Now it's official, every Everdeen woman is doomed to have a love life. No matter how much you don't want one, no matter how hard it's to resist. Everdeen woman, they're inevitable. But not me, I've always felt more like my father than my mother, and Prim is her replica. Prettier than me. It shouldn't bother me, that boys notice her, and Rory Hawthorne at that, but it does. She's my little duckling. I can't let boys touch her, kiss her... do that thing Peeta did to my neck. I shudder.

"What has Rory been?" I say, maybe a little sharper than it should be.

"_No-th-ing._" Prim exclaims, dragging out the word, exasperated. "That's the problem, he won't even talk to me" – I sigh in huge relief at that – "I don't know what I did or said, but ever since a few months ago, during the Victory Tour, he's been avoiding me."

Slowly I made my way back to the bed, and say, "Maybe he's just having some issues at home. Gale and him have been clashing over the hunting in the woods. Especially since what happened with me. He's just.." _Hormonal? Going through a stage?_

Prim rolls her eyes before I can find the right phrase. "Peeta says that he's probably scared I'll give him cooties still. But I know he just said that so Rory wouldn't hurt my feelings."

"You've told Peeta about this?" I exclaim before I could hold it back.

"Yeah." Prim shrugs, looking at me with startled eyes. "Why not? He's always around, and nice."

"Yes, but, he's.. he's just.." I'm your sister, not him.

"He's just..? Your fiancé? I thought I could trust him." Then she adds, as if trying to defend him, "He really does give good advice. Sometimes he'll take me to the bakery, and he'll let me give cookies to some of my classmates. Do you not want me to?"

"No. No, it's fine," I say, running a hand along my scalp. "I just didn't realize you spent so much time with him."

"I try to spend time with everyone. Haymitch doesn't really like it when I try to talk to him, he says I'm just following him around, but he really likes the goat cheese I make." She smiles. "And Gale, I showed him how to wrap up hands, and clean them, since he's got so many coal miner friends who just don't have gloves anymore and they get so cut up on the mines down there. There's Penny too, from town, she's..." and Prim continued on to tell me a couple of things that I listened to, halfheartedly.

All I could really think is: _And where was I?_

I know the answer already, though I'm sure Prim and the whole country knew as well. I was off trying to stop and start a rebellion in the same move, hoping for the downfall and tiptoeing right where President Snow has told me to. I've been dealing with things way over my head and trying to juggle a fiancé and a fake cousin, too. There's only so much time to factor Prim in that situation.

Prim only stops when there's a soft knock on my bedroom door. We both look up and our mother calls through, "Haymitch is downstairs, Katniss. He's wondering if you mean to join them in training this morning."

"Yes," I say. "Tell him I'll be right down."

"Will you promise me something?" Prim rushes when I move to leave, and she crawls to sit on the edge of the bed. "Nothing big, nothing like last time." I hesitate, hand on the doorknob, then nod. "Whatever you do in the Games or after or before, will you promise me you'll do it for yourself. Not because you think it's right or because it's the best option, or someone else told you to do it, will you do it for you. For love. The same way you chose to volunteer for me."

"Of course," I say, wondering where this had come from.

Prim saw the question in my eyes. "I don't want you to change. If you can't come home knowing Peeta's dead, than don't come home because you think I need you. Just don't change, Katniss. Promise that."

"I promise." There's nothing more to say so I move to leave and I'm two steps out the doorway when Prim says, "And Katniss?"

"Yes?"

"Did you thank him?"

I turn back. "Thank who?"

"Peeta. For what he did for you, when I was too young to remember. Did you ever get to thank him?"

"No... not yet."

Haymitch is furious when I finally arrive. "If you think you can get away with skipping out on this Career nonsense, than I'm smuggling the liquor from your mother's heath cabinet."

I laugh. "I hear the stocks are quite warm, actually."

"Yeah, and going into the Hunger Games arena is about the most comfortable life choice one can make."

The time for training ends when the day before the reaping another hundred Peacekeepers arrive by train. Too anxious to sleep that night, I go outside, on the front porch, drinking in the District sadly. This is the last time I will see it in the night. My home. The place I grew up.

If anything, the talk with Prim has opened my eyes. Since I don't plan on making it back alive a second time, the sooner her and my mom, and Gale lets me go, the better. I do plan on saying one or two things to him after the reaping, when we're allowed an hour for good-byes. To let Gale know how essential he's been to me all these years. How much better my life has been for knowing him. For loving him, even if it's only in the limited way that I can manage.

As I'm reciting my speech I lean against the porch rail and I see a figure exiting Haymitch's house across the way. Curiosity peaks in me when I see Peeta's stocky frame. I call him over before I remember that we're still not talking.

"Katniss?" Peeta says, nearer. "You should get some sleep. The reapings tomorrow-"

"I couldn't." I slip around the railing and step down a few of the stairs, taking a seat on the middle one. I stare at him, but he continues to look at his feet, and my arms wind around my suddenly buoyant stomach. "I miss you," I admit. I miss talking to him sometimes. I miss laughing with him, and I do not like this new brute Peeta who bosses Haymitch and me around. I know he means well, but I miss sweet Peeta. The one who wouldn't hesitate to make me smile. The one who would offer me hugs and kisses. The one who helped Prim when I was unable to. I'm afraid I've frightened that Peeta away, by that one rash decision I made to take him in the woods.

"We've been together for the past three weeks. I see you every morning." He lifts his face up, and the porch light accentuates the confusion in his eyes. "I'm not avoiding you."

"But it's.. you're.. acting different." Last night, I dreamed of him. It started out as a nightmare, but when I thought I woke, he was there, holding me, shushing me. And that fire, that hunger for kisses inside me roared to the surface with him so close, shirtless, those hot, heavy lips he would drag along my jaw... I had taken advantage of that dream, of this new hunger that he caused. Then, I realized that was a part of the fantasy, when I woke alone, sweaty, and panting.

"I don't mean to be," Peeta replies.

Forcefully, as I realize I've been staring at his lips, I turn my face toward my bare feet. More and more I've been noticing his lips, and his tongue whenever he would speak to Haymitch or me, the way his hands glide along the tree bark as I taught him to climb, when he would twist his body a certain way and his shirt would reveal his hip bones, straining someway. It makes me squirm, it makes me restless and uncertain and completely lost with whatever my mind and body seem to be at odds with.

I wonder if this is what he's felt and always feels. I've never wanted his kisses before this, and I blame him for making me want them. If this is what he feels all the time, how does he stand it? Do I make Gale this way? Do I drive them as crazy as Peeta does to me? It's never crossed my mind before, because I had never understood the feeling. Now that I do, complicated turns into insanity.

"Katniss," Peeta says. He takes a seat next to me and meekly takes one of my limp hands into his. The feel of his thumb running warm along the back of my knuckles makes me heart pick up, something that's never happened before. It makes me worry. Peeta doesn't continue to speak. I look up at his face to see it flush scarlet and he is staring at his lap, at our hands. The night that looms seems like a cloak, pulling vacuüm tight around us, only us. That's when I notice his knee and calf leaning heavily against mine, suddenly overly noticeable in my conscious mind.

"Katniss," he repeats, stronger. "I wish.. I wish that you knew. That you could understand. I know you hate love and the idea of marriage and children. I wish I could help you see the world as I do. But I can't. You are just... stubborn." His lips curl at that. "I like that about you. You are, were, always the girl I would never know. And now, now, I know everything I could have wanted to." I know he means more than just the complicated stuff; yes, my father's bow and arrow, but my favorite color, too, and my love for cheese buns, everything. I summarize his words in my mind sullenly: _I'm glad I got to know you, before I die._

"You're right, I don't understand," I tell him. "I don't want to marry anyone and I don't want kids. You do. That's why you should live Peeta, because you do have something to live for. You have a future."

"I want to marry you, Katniss. No one else. I don't have a future when you're gone, and you know it." Peeta runs a hand frustratingly through his hair, and I begin to notice the exposed skin of his neck. Before I know it, for no reason at all, I wonder what it's like to do that kissing thing he did to me. What it would taste like. How it would feel.. then his words snap me back to myself. "Tell me, honestly, who do you think out of the two of us, loves the other more?"

I wince, and refuse to answer, because I don't know. It's too obvious and painful to say. "How can you argue about which of us should move on?" Peeta continues softly. "I love you, Katniss. Do you understand how much it would kill me to know if I lived, you would be dead because of it? Do you know how much I would hate myself if I had a choice to help you live and I didn't take it? Why can't you just let me die?"

"Do I need to love someone not to want them to die?" I say back. "You are my friend Peeta. You matter-"

"Yeah, how much?"

I don't answer. I bite into my cheek until I feel Peeta shifting his hand from mine, but instead of letting him go, I pull him closer. Our lips are locked before I can remember why, or how. _Yeah, how much? _and I don't know how much, only this much.

Then I move my lips down his jaw, to his neck. It's salty tasting, almost better than his mouth. When he tries to pull away, I only hold his hand tighter, strung between our laps. Touch, taste, warmth, that's all that follows. No arguments, nothing that imitates logic or restraint on either of our parts. The longer I stroke my lips up his neck, the harsher his breath grows. His fingers are a whisper on my skin. A thumb inches around on the flesh at the hem of my shirt. It traces circles, over and around. Fire from inside of me rages, burning, reaching out to Peeta. Hands buried, twisting into his curls. A blush hotter than embers, running along my back and across his cheeks. Any reluctance or uncertainty, all of it, all that puzzle and complicated that's piled up for weeks inside of me, falls away, into the flames. It is as if I have never walked in my skin before, as if I have never known what it was really for. I could just float here, lose myself to him, in these kisses. Forget that torment waiting for us out in the cruel world.

But then, it begins to get dangerous. Never reach your hands into the fire unless you're prepared to get burned and I learn this lesson quickly enough, when I feel the hunger turn from something harmless into a warm ache, igniting somewhere deep inside of me. Begging for more, craving things I don't really know anything about...

I break away, staggering to my feet and I tumble down the few steps to the ground in front of the porch. Peeta sits on the stairs, chest rising and falling rapidly, staring at me with wide crystalline eyes. "It's late," he says, abruptly.

"Yes," I agree hastily. _You need to leave._

Peeta nods. He stands up, a bit dizzy, and I scurry past him toward the door. "Sweet dreams, Katniss," Peeta calls over his shoulder as he departs. I don't know what he meant by that but there was a sudden urge in me to ask him to join me. That, at first, worries me, but I am thinking only of the nightmares. And I didn't want to be awake all night tormented by them, yet they are almost worse than the ones I have of him. I don't say anything, knowing that there needs to be space between us. Nightmares or no.

Manipulative is a quality I know well, but it seems Peeta knows it better. He manipulates people with his interviews, tries to get me to feel so guilty about my family I'll stand back and let him give me everything. He tries to manipulate things for the better, really. Only he could make a despicable quality sweet. Yet, I don't think he meant those words to make me want him there with me. Nor to make me 'dream of him' literally, but unfortunately as I lie in bed, twisting and turning, all I can think about is the feel of his arms around me.

By the time my mother comes to wake me for the reaping, I haven't slept a wink.


	3. Chapter Three

**_Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended._**

_A/N: You'll find this chapter is a lot of repeat on the original Catching Fire's behalf. I'm sorry for that, though I do try to alter or slip in my own sentences as much as I can, some things just can't be and shouldn't be changed. Sorry for typos. Thanks for reading, please review. Enjoy. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Three<p>

The day of the reapings is hot and sultry. The population of District 12 waits, sweating and silent, in the square with machine guns trained on them. I stand alone in a small roped-off area with Peeta and Haymitch in a similar pen to the right of me. The reaping takes only a minute. Effie, shining in a wig of metallic gold, lacks her usual verve. She has to claw around the girls' reaping ball for quite a while to snag the one piece of paper that everyone already knows had my name on it. Then she catches Haymitch's name. He barely has time to shoot me an unhappy look before Peeta has volunteered to take his place.

When we are motioned to shake hands again, Peeta gives me a small smile and I have to hide my scowl. The cameras are back. I wasn't happy with him at the moment. At any of this, he must know that.

We are immediately marched into the Justice Building to find Head Peacekeeper Thread waiting for us. "New procedure," he says with a smile. We're ushered out the back door, into a car, and taken to the train station. There are no cameras on the platform, no crowd to send us on our way. Haymitch and Effie appear, escorted by guards. Peacekeepers hurry us all onto the train and slam the door. The wheels begin to turn. And I'm left staring out the window, watching District 12 disappear, with all my good-byes still hanging on my lips.

I stood there until the trees have swallowed up the last of my home. I won't return. All that I memorized last night on the front porch is what I take to my dying breath. The one last glimpse of my mother and Prim this morning as I got dressed in a daze. That one, strained smile me and Gale shared on my walk to the reaping.

During my last Hunger Games, I told Prim I would do everything to return and now I've sworn to myself to do all I can to keep Peeta alive. _Promise me, never to change._ And I'm not, I'll go in these Games willing to give my life to someone else every time. That does nothing to make leaving less painful, though. District 12 was a place I've known for years, a place where my father lived and died. This is where I learned to survive. My sister, my mother, Gale.

I stiffen as Peeta clear his throat from behind. Two warm hands latch onto my shoulders and I turn my face down and to the side, unable to look out the window anymore. "We'll write letters, Katniss," Peeta assures me. "It will be better, anyway. Give them a piece of us to hold on to. Haymitch will deliver them for us if... they need to be delivered."

I merely nod and go straight to my compartment before he could say anything else. I'd actually figured out what I wanted my last words to my loved ones to be. How best to close and lock the doors and leave them sad but safely behind. And now the Capitol has stolen that from me as well. As if taking my life just wasn't good enough. Anger rises in me, but I'm not catching the sparks. Furious and despairing in one, I jump from the bed, pacing.

When I sit again, I sit knowing that I will not write those letters Peeta mentioned. They will be like the speech I tried to write to honor Rue and Thresh in District 11. Things seemed clear in my head, but the words will never come out. Neither in speech or out of a pen. Besides, they were meant to go with embraces and kisses and a stoke of Prim's hair, a caress of Gale's face, a squeeze of Madge's hand. They cannot be delivered with a wooden box containing my cold, stiff body.

Heartsick, I just want to lay in bed and sleep until we reach the Capitol tomorrow morning. But I have a mission. No, its more like a dying wish. _Keep Peeta alive._ And as unlikely as it seems that I can achieve it in the face of the Capitol's anger, it's important that I be at the top of my game. This won't happen if I'm mourning for everything I love back home.

_Let them go_, I tell myself. _Say good-bye and forget them._

I do my best, thinking of them one by one, releasing them like birds from the protective cage inside of me, locking the doors against their return. But even still I can feel myself secreting a little piece of them inside of me.

By the time Effie knocks on my door to call me to dinner, I'm empty. The emotions from earlier have settled just as quickly as they arose. But the lightness isn't entirely unwelcome. The meal's subdued. So subdued, in fact, that there are long periods of silence relived only by the removal of old dishes and presentation of new ones. A cold soup of purred vegetables. Fish cakes with creamy lime paste. Those little birds filled with orange sauce, with wild rice and watercress. Chocolate custard dotted with cherries.

Peeta and Effie make occasional attempts at conversation that quickly die out. "I love your new hair, Effie," Peeta says.

"Thank you, I had it especially done to match Katniss' pin. I was thinking we might get you a golden ankle band and maybe find Haymitch a gold bracelet or something so we could all look like a team," says Effie.

Evidently, Effie doesn't know that my mockingjay pin is now a symbol used by the rebels. At least in District 8. In the Capitol, the mockingjay is still a fun reminder of an especially exciting Hunger Games. What else could it be? Real rebels don't put a secret symbol on something as durable as jewelry. They put it on a wafer of bread that can be eaten in a second if necessary.

"I think that's a great idea," says Peeta. "How about it, Haymitch?"

"Yeah, whatever," Haymitch replies flatly. He's not drinking, but I can tell he'd like to be. Effie had them take her own wine away when she saw the effort he was making, but he's in a miserable state. If he were the tribute, he would have owed Peeta nothing and could be as drunk as he liked. Now it's going to take all he's got to keep Peeta alive in an arena full of his old friends, and he'll probably fail.

"Maybe we could get you a wig, too," I say in an attempt at lightness. He just shoots me a look that says to leave him alone, and we all eat out custard in silence.

"Shall we watch the recaps of the reapings?" says Effie, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a white linen napkin. Peeta goes off to retrieve his notebook on the remaining living victors and we gather in the compartment with the television to see who our competition will be in the arena. We are all in place as the anthem begins to play and the annual recaps of the reaping ceremonies in the twelve districts begin.

In the history of the Games, there have been seventy-five victors. Fifty-nine are still alive. I recognize many of their faces, either from seeing them as a tribute or mentor at previous Games or from our recent viewing of the victors' tapes. Some are so old or washed by illness, drugs, or drink that I can't place them. As one would expect, the pools of Career tributes from District 1, 2, and 4 are the largest. But every district has managed to scrape up at least one female and one male victor. The reapings go by quickly.

I peer over Peeta's shoulder at my side as he studiously puts stars by the names of the chosen tributes in his notebook. Haymitch watches, his face devoid of emotion, as friends of his step up to take the stage. Effie makes hushed, distressed comments like, "Oh, not Cecelia," or "Well, Chaff never could stay out of a fight," and sighs frequently.

For my part, I try to make some mental record of the other tributes, but like last year, only a few really stick in my head. There's the classically beautiful brother and sister from District 1 who were victors in consecutive years when I was little. Brutus, a volunteer from District 2, who must be at least forty and apparently can't wait to get back in the arena. Finnick, the handsome bronze-haired guy from District 4 who was crowned ten years ago at the age of fourteen. A hysterical young woman with flowing brown hair is also called from 4, but she's quickly replaced by a volunteer, an eighty-year-old woman who needs a cane to walk to the stage. Then there is Johanna Mason, the only living female victor from 7, who won a few years back by pretending she was a weakling. The woman from 8 who Effie calls Cecelia, who looks about thirty, has to detach herself from the three kids who run up to cling to her. Chaff, a man from 11 who I know to be one of Haymitch's particular friends, is also in. I'm called. Then Haymitch. And Peeta volunteers.

One of the announcers actually gets teary because it seems the odds will never be in our favor, we star-crossed lovers of District 12. Then she pulls herself together to say she bets that "these will be the best Games ever!"

I felt sour by the end of this. Haymitch leaves the compartment without a word, and Effie, after making a few unconnected comments about this tribute or that, bids us good night. I just sit there watching Peeta rip out the pages of the victors who were not picked.

"Why don't you get some sleep? You look tired," he says, without even glancing up at me.

_Because I can't handle the nightmares,_ I think. _Not without you._ I wouldn't say that. But the nightmares are bound to be worse tonight. "What are you going to do?" I ask.

"Just review my notes awhile. Get a clear picture of what we're up against. But I'll go over it with you in the morning. Go to bed, Katniss," Peeta says. I can't help but feel like he is pushing me away. Was he letting go already? Is this his attempt of signing off our friendship to his upcoming sacrifice for me? Will it be like this until he realizes that it is, in fact, him who will live on and I'll die, if I play my cards right? Or was it because of the other night? Did he still feel the pull, that infuriating hunger?

Slumping to my feet, I go to bed, and sure enough, within a few hours a nightmare where the old woman from District 4 transforms into a large rodent and gnaws on my face appears. I know I was screaming, but when I think I wake, I feel arms tight around me, so tight I can't breathe. And then there are lips on my neck, down my shoulders. Hands running along the arc of my back, and then his mouth drops to a place so new that I jerk... right up into the sitting position, alone, sweating, in my dark compartments.

I pull on a robe to calm the goose-flesh crawling along my flesh. Despite being only a little shaky, I know that staying inside my compartment is impossible, so I decide to go find someone to make me tea or hot chocolate or anything to clear my head. Maybe Haymitch is still up. Surely he isn't asleep.

I order warm milk, the most calming thing I can think of, from an attendant. Hearing voices from the television room, I go in and find Peeta. Beside him on the couch is the box Effie sent of tapes of the old Hunger Games. I recognize the episode in which Brutus became victor.

Peeta rises and flips off the tape when he sees me. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Not for long," I say. I pull the robe more securely around me as I remember the old woman transforming into the rodent.

"Want to talk about it?" he asks. Sometimes that can help, but I just shake my head, feeling weak that people I haven't even fought yet already haunt me. When Peeta holds out his arms, I walk straight into them. Almost too eager.

I shove the worry from mind, and instead wrap my arms around his neck before he can change his mind. In turn he holds me so tight that I can't breathe and he buries his face in my hair. Warmth radiates from the spot where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me. And being held feels so good, so impossibly better than what the Peeta in my dreams offer, that I know, even how selfish as it is, I will not be the first to let go. And why should I? I have kissed Gale good-bye the second I decided to die for Peeta. I'll never see him again, that's for certain. I can no longer hurt anyone, not Gale. Not even Prim. This, at least, is one weight off my shoulders. A heavy weight. Gale is gone, and in relief I gasp in the smell of Peeta that I've grown to crave. There is no guilt now, it is... strangely amusing to me, that I've not seen that in truth there's nothing Peeta and I can do that'll amount to harming anything. Only the outcome of these Games can.

The arrival of the Capitol attendant breaks us apart. Peeta has me sit at his side, squashed between him and the box of tapes. The attendant sets a tray with a steaming ceramic jug and two mugs on a table.

"I brought an extra cup," he says.

"Thanks."

"And I added a touch of honey to the milk. For sweetness. And just a pinch of spice," he adds. He looks at us like he wants to say more, then gives his head a slight shake and backs out of the room.

"What's with him?" I say.

"I think he feels bad for us," Peeta responds.

"Right," I say, pouring the milk.

"I mean it. I don't think the people in the Capitol are going to be all that happy about our going back in," says Peeta. "Or the other victors. They get attached to their champions."

"I'm guessing they'll get over it once the blood starts flowing," I say flatly. Really, if there's one thing I don't have time for, it's worrying about how the Quarter Quell will affect the mood in the Capitol. "So, you're watching all the tapes again?"

"Not really. Just sort of skipping around to see people's different fighting techniques," says Peeta.

"Who's next?" I ask.

"You pick," says Peeta, holding out the box.

The tapes are marked with the year of the Games and the name of the victor. I dig around and suddenly find one in my hand that we have not watched. The year of the Games is fifty. That would make it the second Quarter Quell. And the name of the victor is Haymitch Abernathy. "We never watched this one," I say.

Peeta shakes his head. "No. I knew Haymitch didn't want to. The same way we didn't want to relive our own Games. And since we're all on the same team, I didn't think it mattered much."

"Is the person who won the twenty-fifth in here?" I ask.

"I don't think so. Whoever it was must be dead by now, and Effie only sent me victors we might have to face." Peeta weighs Haymitch's tape in his hands. "Why? You think we ought to watch it?"

"It's the only Quell we have. We might pick up something valuable about how they work," I say. But I feel weird. It feels like some major invasion of Haymitch's privacy. I don't know why it should, since the whole thing was public. But it does. I have to admit I'm also extremely curious. "We don't have to tell Haymitch we saw it."

I thought maybe Peeta would be that guy who protects Haymitch, who would object to anything that may have crossed any lines.. but I think my influence may be swaying him, because there is no hesitation in his voice when he says back, "Okay," not two seconds later.

He puts in the tape and I curl up next to him on the couch with my milk, which is really delicious with honey and spice in it, and I lose myself in the Fiftieth Hunger Games. All suggestive thoughts of Peeta fleeing my mind, fortunately, nothing there but the reminder of him leaning into my side.

After the anthem, they show President Snow drawing the envelope for the second Quarter Quell. He looks younger but just as repellent. He reads from the square of paper in the same onerous voice he used for ours, informing Panem that in honor of the Quarter Quell, there will be twice the number of tributes. The editors smash cut right into the reapings, where name after name after name is called.

By the time we get to District 12, I'm completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of kids going to certain death. There's a woman, not Effie, calling the names in 12, but she still begins with "Ladies first!" She calls out the name of a girl who's from the Seam, you can tell by the look of her, and then I hear the name "Maysilee Donner."

"Oh!" I say. "She was my mother's friend." The camera finds her in the crowd, clinging to two other girls. All blond. All definitely merchants' kids.

"I think that's your mother hugging her," says Peeta quietly.

And he's right. As Maysilee Donner bravely disengages herself and heads for the stage, I catch a glimpse of my mother at my age, and no one exaggerated her beauty. Holding her hand and weeping is another girl who looks just like Maysilee. But a lot like someone else I know, too.

"Madge," I say.

"That's her mother. She and Maysilee were twins or something," Peeta corrects softly. "My dad mentioned it once."

I think of Madge's mother. Mayor Undersee's wife. Who spends half her life in bed immobilized with terrible pain, shutting out the world. I think of how I never realized that she and my mother shared this connection. Of Madge showing up in that snowstorm to bring the painkillers for Gale. Of my mockingjay pin and how it means something completely different now that I know that its former owner was Madge's aunt, Maysilee Donner, a tribute who was murdered in the arena.

Haymitch's name is called last of all. It's more of a shock to see him than my mother. Young. Strong. Hard to admit, but he was something of a looker. His hair dark and curly, those gray Seam eyes bright and, even then, dangerous. "Oh, Peeta, you don't think he killed Maysilee, do you?" I burst out. I don't know why, but I can't stand the thought.

"With forty-eight players? I'd say the odds are against it," Peeta tries to reassure.

The chariot rides – in which the District 12 kids are dressed in awful coal miners' outfits – and the interviews flash by. There's little time to focus on anyone. But since Haymitch is going to be the victor, we get to see one full exchange between him and Caesar Flickerman, who looks exactly as he always does.

"So, Haymitch, what do you think of the Games having one hundred percent more competitors in this than usual?" asks Caesar.

Haymitch shrugs. "I don't see that it makes much difference. They'll still be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure the odds will be roughly the same."

The audience bursts out laughing and Haymitch gives them a half smile. Snarky. Arrogant. Indifferent. "He didn't have to reach far for that, did he?" I comment, but Peeta was too into the Games to reply.

Now it's the morning of the Game. I can't help but give a slight gasp when the arena comes into view. Disbelief is reflected on the faces of the players. Even Haymitch's eyebrows lift in pleasure, although they almost immediately knit themselves back into a scowl. It's the most breathtaking place imaginable. Green meadow, gorgeous flowers, a beautiful blue sky with puffy clouds, and bright song birds fluttering overhead. The meadow stretches for miles, in one way it is wood, in the other a snow capped mountain.

Haymitch dives toward the cornucopia, arming himself with weapons and a backpack of choice supplies. He heads for the woods before most tributes could step off their plates. Eighteen dead in the bloodbath. Others begin to die off as it becomes increasingly clear that almost everything there is poisonous and deadly. It is just like the Capitol, lulling someone into a sense of peace and then striking them when they should not expect it. It was no better than back stabbing someone. Or killing without a fair fight.

A pack of ten Careers scout the mountain area and take their victims mercilessly. The increased amount of tributes have secured a higher rate of terror and determination in a tribute. They have to work twice as hard to get what others have won in the past. Haymitch has his own troubles over in the woods, where the fluffy golden squirrels turn out to be carnivorous and attack in packs, and the butterfly stings bring agony if not death. But he moves forward, keeping distant from the mountain at his back.

Maysilee Donner turns out to be pretty resourceful and figures out a way to dip darts into poisons, using a blowgun to take out tributes. Four days in, the picturesque mountain erupts into a volcano that wipes out another dozen players. With the mountain spewing liquid fire, and the meadow offering no means of concealment, the remaining thirteen tributes – including Haymitch and Maysilee – have no choice but to confine themselves in the woods. Haymitch encounters Careers, kills two but is almost killed by the third until Maysilee saves him. In result they make an alliance, if not a flimsy one. Just like Peeta and me, they do better together. Get more rest, fight as a team, work out a system to salvage more rainwater, and share the food from the dead tributes' packs. But Haymitch is still determined to keep moving on.

"Why?" Maysilee asks him.

"Because it has to end somewhere, right?" Haymitch replies.

"The arena can't go on forever."

"What do you expect to find?"

"I don't know. But maybe there's something we can use," he says.

When they finally do make it through that impossible hedge, using a blowtorch from one of the dead Careers' packs, they find themselves on flat, dry earth that leads to a cliff. Far below, you can see jagged rocks.

"That's all there is, Haymitch. Let's go back," says Maysilee.

"No, I'm staying here," he says.

"All right. There's only five of us left. May as well say good-bye now, anyway," she says. "I don't want it to come down to you and me."

"Okay," he agrees. That's all. He doesn't offer to shake her hand or even look at her. And she walks away. Haymitch skirts along the edge of the cliff as if trying to figure something out. His foot dislodges a pebble and it falls into the abyss, apparently gone forever. But a minute later, as he sits to rest, the pebble shoots back up beside him. Haymitch stares at it, puzzled, and then his face takes on a strange intensity. He lobs a rock the size of his fist over the cliff and waits. When it flies back out and right into his hand, he starts laughing.

That's when we hear Maysilee begin to scream. The alliance is over and she broke it off, so no one could blame him for ignoring her. But Haymitch runs for her, anyway. He arrives only in time to watch the last of a flock of candy pink birds, equipped with long, thin beaks, skewer her through the neck. He holds her hand while she dies.

Slowly numbers dwindle, leaving Haymitch and a girl from District 1 to vie for the crown. She's bigger than he is and just as fast, and when the inevitable fight comes, it's bloody and awful and both have received what could well be fatal wounds, when Haymitch is finally disarmed. He staggers through the beautiful woods, holding his intestines in, while she stumbles after him, carrying the ax that should deliver his deathblow. He makes a beeline for the cliff and just as he reached the edge she throws her ax. He collapses on the ground and it flies into the abyss.

Now weaponless as well, the girl just stands there, trying to staunch the flow of blood pouring from her empty eye socket. She's thinking perhaps to outlive him. But what she doesn't know, and what he does, is that the ax will return. And when it flies back over the ledge, it buries itself into her head. The cannon sounds, her body is removed, and the trumpets blow to announce Haymitch's victory.

Peeta clicks off the tape and we sit there in silence for a while. Finally Peeta says, "That force field at the bottom of the cliff, it was like the one on the roof of the Training Center. The one that throws you back if you try to jump off and commit suicide. Haymitch found a way to turn it into a weapon."

"Not just against the other tributes, but the Capitol, too," I say. "You know they didn't expect that to happen. It wasn't meant to be a part of the arena. They never planned on anyone using it as a weapon. It made them look stupid that he figured it out. I bet they had a good time trying to spin that one. Bet that's why I don't remember seeing it on television. It's almost as bad as us and the berries!"

I can't help my sudden rush of humor. I laugh, really laughing for the first time in months. Peeta just shakes his head like I've lost my mind – and maybe I have, a little. But I can see the amused tilt of his mouth.

"Almost, but not quite," says Haymitch from behind us. I whip around, afraid he's going to be angry over us watching his tape, but he just smirks and takes a swing from a bottle of wine. So much for sobriety. I guess I should be upset he's drinking again, but I'm preoccupied with another feeling. I've spent all these weeks getting to know my competition, without even thinking about who my teammates are. Now a new kind of confidence is lighting up inside of me, because I think I finally know who Haymitch is. And I'm beginning to know who I am.

Once, I think, Peeta compared me to Haymitch, I had denied it then, but now I see what he means. Surely two people who have caused the Capitol so much trouble can think of a way to get Peeta home alive. I'm still sort of buzzing from the laugh when Haymitch mutters something and takes him and his drink back out of the compartment. It made me wonder how long he had been standing there. But after he is gone, this confidence settles in my chest, replacing the empty I felt earlier when I had to let go of my family.

Relief, I decide is my favorite emotion, and I sink into the couch, my stiff back muscles relaxing against the velvety fabric. I push out a long breath and it feels great. My eyes are closed from the dark room around me, but a sudden light touch tracing over my hands cause them to open again. Peeta is looking up at me, and when I see him, I smile on instinct.

"I told you, you're tired," he mutters.

I roll my eyes, closing them again. "Yeah, well _now_ I am."

He says nothing, but instead shifts so he is comfortably leaning against my shoulder and the back of the coach. His fingers continue to caress mine, until they begin to run fingernails along my forearms, giving me goosebumps. "You're not a very convincing liar," he breathes after a long time, and I can feel his breath against my cheek.

_Yes, I know,_ I think. _That's why we are stuck here. That's why the rebels wouldn't believe I loved you._

Despite the thought I lean into him, resting my head on his chest and after a slight hesitation he gathers me up in his arms for the second embrace of the night. This time there is no attendant coming to separate us. My eyelids are heavy, from tonight's nightmare and the dream afterward, inundated with thoughts of this boy and his arms around me. Now, they are, and I can feel myself quickly sinking away. The hunger only a dual and satisfied ache. There is the same spark, though less intense, and exhausted. It is enough to be in his arms and to know that somehow, someway I am going to save him.


	4. Chapter Four

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: Again repeat with new strewn out between it. I would love to hear everyones opinion! Reviews are always appreciated and worshipped. More Katniss slowly changing, but I mean only to change, or rather excel, one portion of her. Thank you for reading. Sorry for typos. Enjoy. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Four<p>

My thigh is thrown over his hip, while our legs are twined hopelessly together. We are tangled, struggling to fit laying down on the narrow couch. His nose is brushing across my forehead, lips damp against my cheekbone, and my chest is fitted directly onto his. The only reason I convince myself that I'm not moving away is because I don't want to wake him.

But that is a stupid excuse. I know why. Because whatever I say to him when he wakes up it will probably not be what he wants to hear. The odds are that I will wound him in one way or another by opening my mouth, so I'm content in not saying anything at all.

And, where his hand lays underneath my shirt against my lower back, my skin tingles, burns, his imprint branding itself there, seeping through skin, through blood and veins, deeper than bone. His breath whisking across my jaw, down my neck, and I fight not to shudder. Why ruin it? Why start the inevitable fight over who lives and dies? Why resist what feels so good and warm and wonderful when there's no harm in doing it?

Peeta's chest rises slowly in sleep, and I know each time it expands tighter across mine, I can't possibly sleep any longer. It is quiet and I feel my eyes boring holes into his face. His eyelashes are just as hypnotizing as I remember them to be. They might be as soft as silk. As soft as his lips.. and I wish we weren't so impossibly tangled together that I might drop my eyes to look at them. If I lean in just a bit, my lips could touch the underside of his jaw. Would it wake him? Would I care? Why am I even contemplating ridiculous and useless and stupid things like this?

I'm blaming Peeta. He is doing this to me. His hot breath on my skin is all I feel. The higher rates of my emotions, this new hunger, the teenage hormones I've never had a problem with before this. Each one has a different flavor to it and kinkier thoughts to boot.

Like now, I feel warmth. And it isn't like the normal, now I can live and I won't have to worry about freezing to death or getting sick. Normal Katniss behavior. Instead, the heat crawls slowly over my flesh, burrows into my skin, loosening every tense nerve and softening my sore muscles. Like Buttercup kneading my skin into mush, as unlikely as that is. I think about how I could make this feeling last. I think about that it's Peeta who is making me feel this way and how... new it is.

And normally new means bad. But this is a new, new. A not entirely unwelcome new.

"You make me weak," I say, one of the hands I have slung around him, pinching his side lightly. The accusation in my voice is overpowering.

It takes a moment, but his eyes open, eyelashes tickling my forehead. I repeat myself when, groggy, Peeta pulls back so we are at a talking distance, but still entirely too temptingly close. "How?" he rasps.

"That's a stupid question," I tell him. "You make me have another person to worry about. When I was young.. it was only my mother and Prim. Now I have you, and.. Haymitch.. and Gale.."

"Loving people isn't a weakness, Katniss."

"Yeah, well," I say stubbornly, "I don't love you."

"I know," Peeta says, amusement in his voice.

Was he mocking me? Mirth dances inside his deep blue eyes. "Why are you.. laughing?" I ask.

"I'm not," says Peeta. Innocently holding back a grin.

I scowl. "You're definitely amused about something."

He seems to think about it for a minute. His eyes wander the panes of my face and since he is so close when he smiles, I can feel his forehead, against mine, press closer. I would have been more worried, or focused on the fact that, he might kiss me, if I was not blinded by his dimples. "I don't believe you," Peeta says.

_Again_. I feel my stomach churn, because he doesn't believe me. Doesn't trust me. "Believe what?"

"That you don't love me."

That takes me a minute to swallow, and once I process it all, in plenty of shock, I'm still stunned by his blatant choice of words. "You don't think I know how I feel?"

"No. I know you do," he says. "But you just won't admit it to anyone else."

Great, now he's a psychologist. And arrogant. "What makes you think that?" I ask tensely.

"Because you just listed me with a whole bunch of people you've admitted to loving. I was right in the middle, doesn't that count for something?" There is so much _hope_ in his voice that I lose my grasp on how confident he seemed on the subject just moments ago. He's no longer smug, no longer laughing. He wants me to acknowledge it, to approve of his new theory.

But I am speechless. A fish with their mouth opening and closing uselessly, stuck on land, in the middle of a desert. Peeta is suggesting I'm in denial. Am I in denial? Why would I be? I could easily admit I loved Gale and that was difficult.. or it seemed difficult. But I knew I loved Gale, very confidently. There is no uncertainty on that fact. With Peeta... it is so confusing, so mixed up and complicated. So much pressure and manipulation. So much selfishness on my side and goodness on his. So many things unresolved and troubling. How could I love him? It would only be a threat on my life, on any future child's life... and if I could love him, why didn't I? Why couldn't I have just loved him when it mattered, when it meant something, when it could have saved our nation?

And how can I not love him? When all I want to do it kiss him? When I dream of things that I used to think I would never want? These emotions are supposed to be toward those you love, those you would marry, have children with, because that's what comes as a result. Children. These were fruitless thoughts that should not even cross my mind. It doesn't matter if I love him. I owe him. I am saving him and what I should be thinking about is how I am going to claw my way to that dying wish.

Abruptly, I pull myself from his grasp entirely. I twist around and sit up, then stumble to my feet. I get a major head rush, seeing black spots and two hands shoot out to hold me on either sides of my hips, steadying me. A roil of pleasure runs up my body and I shove them away. They are full of that delicious warmth, a dangerous want.

He doesn't try to stop me, doesn't argue or demand an answer to all the questions I left hanging wide open. I imagine he just sat there staring after me, leaving in the middle of our fight.

Somehow I make it to my room, and not twenty minutes later Effie is escorting me outside the train and into my prep teams arms. Having been through prep with Flavius, Venia, and Octavia numerous times, it should just be an old routine to survive. But I haven't anticipated the emotional ordeal that awaits me.

At some point during the prep, each of them bursts into tears at least twice, and Octavia pretty much keeps up a running whimper throughout the morning. It turns out they really have become attached to me, and the idea of my returning to the arena has undone them. Combine that with the fact that by losing me they'll be losing their ticket to all kinds of big social events, particularly my wedding, and the whole thing becomes unbearable.

The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the position of having to console them. Since I'm the person going in to be slaughtered, this is somewhat annoying. It's interesting, though, when I think of what Peeta said about the attendant on the train being unhappy about the victors having to fight again. About people in the Capitol not liking it. I still think all of that will be forgotten once the gong sounds, but it's something of a revelation that those in the Capitol feel anything at all about us. They certainly don't have a problem watching children murdered every year. But maybe they know too much about the victors, especially the ones who've been celebrities for ages, to forget we're human beings. It's more like watching your own friends die. More like the Games are for those of us in the districts.

By the time Cinna shows up, I am irritable and exhausted from comforting the prep team, especially because their constant tears are reminding me of the ones undoubtedly being shed at home. Standing there in my thin robe, their wracking emotions have me walking a thin line. I know I can't bear even one more look of regret. So the moment Cinna walks in the door I snap, "I swear if you cry, I'll kill you here and now."

Cinna just smiles. "Had a damp morning?"

"You could wring me out," I reply.

Cinna puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me into lunch. "Don't worry. I always channel my emotions into my work. That way I don't hurt anyone but myself."

"I can't go through that again," I warn him.

"I know. I'll talk to them," says Cinna.

Lunch makes me feel a bit better. It is pheasant with a selection of jewel-colored jellies, and tiny versions of real vegetables swimming in butter, beside a dish of potatoes mashed with parsley. For dessert we dip chunks of fruit in a pot of melted chocolate, and Cinna has to order a second pot because I start eating the stuff with a spoon.

"So, what are we wearing for the opening ceremonies?" I finally ask as I scrape the second pot clean. "Headlamps or fire?" I know the chariot ride will require Peeta and me to be dressed in something coal related.

"Something along that line," he says.

When it's time to get in costume for the opening ceremonies, my prep team shows up but Cinna sends them away, saying they've done such a spectacular job in the morning, there's nothing left to do. They go off to recover, thankfully leaving me in Cinna's hands. He puts up my hair first, in the braided style my mother introduced him to, then proceeds with my makeup. Last year he used little so that the audience would recognize me when I landed in the arena. But now my face is almost obscured by the dramatic highlights and dark shadows. High arching eyebrows, sharp cheekbones, smoldering eyes, deep purple lips.

The costume looks deceptively simple at first, just a fitted black jumpsuit that covers me from the neck down. He places a half crown like the one I received as victor on my head, but it's made of a heavy black metal, not gold. Then he adjusts the light in the room to mimic twilight and presses a button just inside the fabric on my wrist. I look down, fascinated, as my ensemble slowly comes to life, first with a soft golden light but gradually transforming to the orange-red of burning coal. I look as if I have been coated in glowing embers—no, that I am a glowing ember straight from our fireplace. The colors rise and fall, shift and blend, in exactly the way the coals do.

"How did you do this?" I say in wonder.

"Portia and I spent a lot of hours watching fires," says Cinna. "Now look at yourself." He turns me toward a mirror so that I can take in the entire effect. I do not see a girl, or even a woman, but some unearthly being who looks like she might make her home in the volcano that destroyed so many in Haymitch's Quell. The black crown, which now appears red-hot, casts strange shadows on my dramatically made-up face.

Katniss, the girl on fire, has left behind her flickering flames and bejeweled gowns and soft candlelight frocks. She is as deadly as fire itself.

"I think… this is just what I needed to face the others," I say.

"Yes, I think your days of pink lipstick and ribbons are behind you," says Cinna. He touches the button on my wrist again, extinguishing my light. "Let's not run down your power pack. When you're on the chariot this time, no waving, no smiling. I just want you to look straight ahead, as if the entire audience is beneath your notice."

"Finally something I'll be good at," I say.

Cinna has a few more things to attend to, so I decide to head down to the ground floor of the Remake Center, which houses the huge gathering place for the tributes and their chariots before the opening ceremonies. I'm hoping to find Peeta and Haymitch, but they haven't arrived yet. Unlike last year, when all the tributes were practically glued to their chariots, the scene is very social. The victors, both this year's tributes and their mentors, are standing around in small groups, talking. Of course, they all know one another and I don't know anyone, and I'm not really the sort of person to go around introducing myself. So I just stroke the neck of one of my horses and try not to be noticed.

It doesn't work.

The crunching hits my ear before I even know he's beside me, and when I turn my head, Finnick Odair's famous sea green eyes are only inches from mine. He pops a sugar cube in his mouth, with more crunching and sucking, then leans against my horse.

"Hello, Katniss," he says, as if we've known each other for years, when in fact we've never met.

I try to keep my scowl on the horse and not him. "Hello, Finnick," I say, just as casually although I'm feeling uncomfortable at his closeness, especially since he's got so much bare skin exposed.

"Want a sugar cube?" he says, offering his hand, which is piled high. "They're suppose to be for the horses, but who cares? They've got years to eat sugar, whereas you and I... well, if we see something sweet, we better grab it quick."

Finnick Odair is something of a living legend in Panem. Since he won the Sixty-fifth Hunger Games when he was only fourteen, he's still one of the youngest victors. Being from District 4, he was a Career, so the odds were already in his favor, but what no trainer could claim to have given him was his extraordinary beauty. Tall, athletic, with golden skin and bronze-colored hair paired with those incredible eyes. While other tributes that year were hard-pressed to get a handful of grain or some matches for a gift, Finnick never wanted for anything. Not food or medicines or weapons. It took about a week for his competitors to realize that he was the one to kill, but it was too late. He was already a good fighter with the spears and knifes he had found at the Cornucopia, so when he received the silver parachute with a trident it was all over.

District 4's industry is fishing. He'd been on boats his whole life, the trident came naturally. He wove nets to entangle his opponents and spear them. Within the matter of days he had the crown.

Now there are rumors about him being given to the biggest bidder of drooling Capitol citizens. I can't argue that Finnick isn't one of the most stunning, sensuous people on the planet. But I can honestly say he's never been attractive to me. Maybe he's too pretty, or maybe he's too easy to get, or maybe it's he's too easy to lose. Either way, the thought of sharing him with paying Capitol snobs was revolting.

"No, thanks," I say to the sugar. "I'd love to borrow your outfit sometime, though." He's draped in a golden net that's strategically knotted at his groin so that he can't technically be called naked, but he's about as close as you can get. I'm sure his stylist thinks the more of Finnick the audience sees, the better.

"You're absolutely terrifying me in that get-up. What happened to the pretty little-girl dresses?" he asks. He wets his lips just ever so slightly with his tongue. Probably this drives most people crazy, but for some reason all I can think about is old Cray, salivating over some poor, starving young woman.

"I outgrew them," I say simply.

Finnick takes the collar of my outfit and runs it between his fingers. "It's too bad about this Quell thing. You could have made out like a bandit in the Capitol. Jewels, money, anything you wanted."

"I don't like jewels, and I have more money than I need. What do you spend all yours on anyway, Finnick?"

"Oh, I haven't dealt in anything as common as money for years," says Finnick.

"Then how do they pay you for the pleasures of your company?" I ask.

"With secrets," he says softly. He tips his head in so his lips are almost in contact with mine. "What about you, girl on fire? Do you have secrets worth my time?"

_Do I?_ My mouth immediately says, "No, I'm an open book. Everybody seems to know my secrets before I know them myself." But I blush, the heat flaming down my cheeks, remembering the dream the other night, the ever growing hunger inside of me for more. The thought causes another wave of heat to spread all the way to the tips of my toes.

Thankfully, I held my ground and Finnick says, while smiling, "Unfortunately, I think that's true." His eyes flicker off to the side. "Peeta is coming. Sorry you have to cancel your wedding. I know how devastating that must be for you." He tosses another sugar cube in his mouth and saunters off.

Peeta's beside me, dressed in an outfit identical to mine. "What did Finnick Odair want?" he asks.

I turn and put my lips close to Peeta's. My eyelids are hooded, in a poor imitation of Finnick. "He offered me sugar and wanted to know all my secrets," I say in my best seductive voice.

Peeta laughs. Good to see he isn't mad at me for ditching this morning. "Ugh. Not really."

"Really," I say. "I'll tell you more when my skin stops crawling."

"Do you think we'd have ended up like that if only one of us had won?" he asks, glancing around at the other victors. "Just another part of the freak show?"

I snort. I know he doesn't mean it literally, he understands they are all at the disposal of their stylists. And the after effects of their first Hunger Games, but I love that he has the right words to keep the atmosphere light. "Sure," I reply. "Especially you."

"Oh, and why especially me?" he says.

"Because you have a weakness for beautiful things and I don't." Was I really going to bring back weaknesses again after this morning? I have a rebellious mouth. "They would lure you into their Capitol ways and you'd be lost for an eternity."

His face softens. "Having an eye for beauty isn't the same thing as a weakness," Peeta say, and again I feel like we're back to this morning, but now it's weakness and beauty, instead of love. Then he goes ahead and adds, "Except possibly when it comes to you." The blush ridiculously sears back to the surface. Before I can move, his lips brush mine.

I jolt, but I guess it is kind of my fault for never pulling back again after the Finnick imitation. Plus, it's never really been Peeta to be so bold to steal a kiss. Except, I don't admonish it, and I usually don't return them, not so readily, not with so many people around.

A woman's laughter breaks us apart. Cecelia has a kind face, a tone of skin that runs deeper in her bare forearms and along her freckled shoulders, the outfit of some sort of brightly colored textile workings revealing a bit more skin than most woman around thirty would choose to expose. For a mother of three, she is surprisingly fit, though, and her strong, sweet voice is tinged in a constant good nature. I don't know a thing about her Hunger Games, but I do wonder how someone who seems so maternal had won.

"No need to look so abash," Cecelia says to Peeta, who's flushed. "She is your fiancé, kiss her all you like. Never know how many chances you'll get after tonight." Her smile is cloy, laughing, then she turns to me. "I'm sorry about your wedding, those dresses were all very beautiful on you."

"I like this outfit much better," I say.

"Yes," Cecelia agrees, looking it over. "It suits you better. And you," she turns back to Peeta and straightens his collar, the one I messed up. "You remind me of my oldest son, so handsome. That bright, charming smile."

Peeta laughs, completely at ease while I shift uncertainly, watching her touch him. I wonder if I'm prepared to shoot her with an arrow, when in a weeks time she touches him and we're not wearing silly outfits, but we're attempting to fight to the death. I don't get far in that thought, before the music begins to play and Cecelia bids us both a goodbye.

"She's nice," Peeta says when she's out of earshot. I shrug. Along with the start of the music, I see the doors at the front of the train opening for the first chariot, and hear the roar of the crowd beyond. We both feel the weight of the Opening Ceremony occurring to us again, instead of kisses and competitors, and Peeta holds out a hand to help me into the chariot. "Shall we?"

I climb up and pull him up after me. "Hold still," I say, and I straighten his crown. Cecelia missed this. "Have you seen your suit turned on? We're going to be fabulous again."

"Absolutely. But Portia says we're to be very above it all. No waving or anything," he says.

"Where are they, anyway?"

"I don't know."

I eye the procession of chariots. "Maybe we better go ahead and switch ourselves on."

We do and as we begin to glow, I can see people pointing at us and chattering, and I know, once again, that I owe a big thank you to our stylists. We're almost at the door. I crane my head around, but neither Portia nor Cinna, who were with us right up to the final second last year, are anywhere in sight. "Are we supposed to hold hands this year?" I ask.

"I guess they've left it up to us," Peeta replies.

I look up into those blue eyes that no amount of dramatic makeup can make truly deadly and remember how, just a year ago, I was prepared to kill him. I was convinced he was trying to kill me. Now everything is reversed. I'm determined to keep him alive, knowing the cost will be my own life. But a part of me, the selfish me who loves to run bad things out of my mouth and adores this new need I feel, is glad that it's Peeta, not Haymitch, standing beside me.

Our hands find each other without further discussion. Of course we will go into this as one.


	5. Chapter Five

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: I would like to thank anyone and everyone who's been reading my story or is currently reading it. And I want to tell you I appreciate every single favorite, alert, or review. Even if you want to wait until the end to review, they're always fun to read when their written chapter by chapter. Anyway, sorry for typos. It's a little short. Enjoy. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Five<p>

The voice of the crowd rises into one universal scream as we roll into the fading evening light, but neither one of us reacts. I simply fix my eyes on a point far in the distance and pretend there is no audience, no hysteria. I can't help catching glimpses of us on the huge screens along the route, and we are not just beautiful, we are dark and powerful. No, more than that.

We star-crossed lovers from District 12, who suffered so much and enjoyed so little the rewards of our victory, do not seek the fans' favor, grace them with our smiles, or catch their kisses. We are unforgiving.

And I love it. Getting to be myself at last.

As we curve around into the loop of the City Circle, I can see that a couple of the other stylists have tried to steal Cinna and Portia's idea of illumining their tributes. The electric-light-studded outfits from District 3, where they make electronics, at least makes sense. But what are livestock keepers from District 10, who are dressed as cows, doing with flaming belts? Broiling themselves? Pathetic. On the stylists part. The tributes look miserable.

Peeta and I, on the other hand, thanks to Cinna and Portia, look mesmerizing. Most of the other tributes are staring at us. We seem particularly enticing to the pair from District 6, who are known morphling addicts. Both bone thin, with sagging yellow skin. They can't tear their over large eyes away even when President Snow begins to speak from his balcony, welcoming us all to the Quell. The anthem plays, and as we make our final trip around the circle, am I wrong? Or did I see the president fixated on me as well?

No. That's a nonsensical thought. He must have been glaring. Upset that we have made something of ourselves when he just wanted to make us weak, to make us look like jokes, that a rebellion could never spring up from us.

Peeta and I wait until the doors of the Training Center have closed behind us to relax. Cinna and Portia are there, pleased with our performance, and Haymitch has made an appearance this year as well, only he's not at our chariot, he's over with the tributes of District 11. I see him nod over in our direction and then they follow him over to greet us.

I know Chaff by sight because I've spent years watching him pass a bottle back and forth with Haymitch on television. He's dark skinned, about six feet tall, and one of his arms ends in a stump because he lost his hand in the Games he won thirty years ago. I'm sure they offered him a replacement, but he didn't take it. The woman, Seeder, looks almost like she could be from the Seam, with her olive-toned skin and straight black hair streaked with silver. Only her golden brown eyes mark her as from another district. She must be around sixty, but she still looks strong, and there's no sign she's turned to liquor or morphine or any other chemical form of escape over the years.

Before either of us says a word, she embraces me. I know somehow it must be because of Rue and Thresh, and unable to stop myself, I whisper, "The families?"

"They're alive," she says back faintly, letting go.

Chaff throws his good arm around me and gives me a kiss right on the mouth. I jerk back, startled, while he and Haymitch guffaw. I could taste the lingering and curdling alcohol on his lips. Haymitch must have brought down shots to share before we arrived.

That's about all the time we get before the Capitol attendants are firmly directing us toward the elevators. I get the distinct feeling they're not comfortable with the camaraderie among the victors, who couldn't seem to care less. As I walk toward the elevator, wiping the back of my hand repeatedly on my mouth, and my other hand still linked with Peeta's, someone else is rushing up to our side. The girl pulls off a headdress of leafy branches and tosses it behind her without bothering to look where it falls. One glance and I know that face. Johanna Mason.

She's from District 7. Lumber and paper, thus the tree. She won by very convincingly portraying herself as weak and helpless so that she would be ignored. Then she demonstrated a wicked ability to murder. She ruffles up her spiky hair and rolls her wide-set brown eyes as I look at her. "Isn't my costume awful? My stylist is the biggest idiot in the Capitol. Our tributes have been trees for forty years under her. Wish I'd gotten Cinna. You look fantastic."

Girl talk. That thing I've always been so bad at. Sharing and discussion opinions on clothes, hair, and makeup. I think Prim. Channel Prim, or.. – I glance over at Peeta – channel Peeta? He's good with words, what would he say to Johanna?

I decide on simple, strung out words. "Yeah, he's been helping me design my own clothing line. You should see what he can do with velvet." Velvet. The only fabric I could think of off the top of my head.

"I have. On your tour. That strapless number you wore in District 2? The deep blue one with diamonds? So gorgeous I wanted to reach through the screen and tear it right off your back," says Johanna.

_I bet you did,_ I think. _With a few layers of my flesh_.

While we wait for the elevators, Johanna unzips the rest of her tree, letting it drop to the floor, and then kicks it away in disgust. Except for her forest green slippers she doesn't have on a stitch of clothing. "That's better."

We end up on the same elevator with her, and she spends the whole ride to the seventh floor chatting to Peeta about his paintings while the light of his still-glowing costume reflects off her bare breasts. When she leaves, I ignore him, but I just know he's grinning. I toss aside his hand as the doors close behind her, the two of us alone, and he begins to laugh.

"What?" I say, crossing my arms over my chest.

"It's you, Katniss. Can't you see?" Peeta says.

"What's me?" I say. Indignation was rearing its ugly head and its not becoming of anyone.

"Why they're all acting like this. Finnick with his sugar cubes and Chaff kissing you. The whole thing with Johanna stripping down." He tries to suppress that huge grin and to take a serious tone, but doesn't succeed. "They're playing with you because you're so... you know."

"No, I don't know," I say. I really have no idea what he's referring to. But that sharp twist in my chest is settling slowly into curiosity. I still hold onto my sharp tone, just so he won't be let off too easily.

"It's just like when you wouldn't look at me naked in the arena even though I was half dead. You're so.. pure," he finally concludes.

"I am not!" I say almost immediately. That spark of a smugness in his eyes returns. "They've seen me practically ripping off your clothes every time there's been a camera around for the past year!"

"Yeah, but I mean, for the Capitol, you're pure. Imagine how many times they undressed Finnick within the ceremonies and over the years? Besides, the victors aren't stupid they know you're just doing it for the shot."

I open my mouth to retort, then close it when I realize, for the Capitol, the sex-crazed, sensual-loving people of this materialistic world, I really am as pure as it gets. Until I remember recent cravings that have been added to my menu.

"I'm not that pure," I finally say.

Peeta rolls his eyes. "Katniss, you're pure, trust me."

_Again_. He doesn't believe me, doesn't take my words for the truth. "No," I say more forcefully, stubbornly. "How do you know? You don't know everything about me."

"I know enough. You're still pure, to them. For me, you're perfect. They're just teasing you."

"No they're laughing at me and so are you!" I say. "And you _don't_ know."

Peeta shakes his head, but he's still having trouble suppressing that smile. I'm seriously rethinking the question of who should get out of these Games alive when I abruptly look up to the light that tells us what floor we're on. Too stubborn for my own good I grab Peeta's face in my hands and press my mouth to his in a wet, open, jarring kiss that only lasts as long as it takes for one hand to slip underneath the edge of his shirt, resting over the rigid muscles of his stomach and the other to slide tantalizingly along and past the edge of his pant's waistband. My fingers are icy against his hot skin, and he jerks away almost immediately, surprised.

"Who's the pure one now?" I demand.

His eyes are on fire. An icy, crystalline blue fire that resembles a storming sea. "Neither of us."

Peeta looks dazed and confused and only slightly amused, when we step out onto the twelfth floor. In fact, I feel a bit lightheaded myself. Had I even been breathing in those few seconds? I definitely hadn't of been thinking...

The sound of the other elevator opening distracts me, and Effie and Haymitch join us, looking pleased about something. Then Haymitch's face grows hard. _What did I do now?_ I almost say, but I see he's staring behind me at the entrance to the dining room.

Effie blinks in the same direction, then says brightly, "Looks like they've got you a matched set this year."

I turn around and find the redheaded Avox girl who tended to me last year until the Games began. I think how nice it is to have a friend here. I notice that the young man beside her, another Avox, also has red hair. That must be what Effie meant by the matched set.

Then a chill runs through me. Because I know him, too. The sudden lightness, the confidence, everything good suddenly crashes around me, and it is all I can do not to lean into the nearby wall. I don't know him from the Capitol but from years of having easy conversations in the Hob, joking over Greasy Sae's soup, and that last day, watching him lie unconscious in the square while the life bled out of Gale.

Our new Avox is Darius.

I stare at him. Haymitch grips my wrist as if anticipating my next move, but I am as speechless as the Capitol has rendered Darius. Haymitch once told me they did something to Avoxes' tongues so they could never talk again. In my head I hear Darius' voice, playful and bright, ringing along the Hob to tease me. Not as my fellow victors make fun of me now, but because we genuinely liked each other. If Gale could see him...

I know any move I make toward Darius, any act of recognition, would only result in punishment for him. So we just stare into each other's eyes. All my emotions seem to wipe clean, I feel foolish for whatever Peeta and I did or talked about in the elevator. Embarrassed actually. I don't know what to feel, not when I'm staring a bitter reality straight in the face.

Darius, now a mute slave; me, now headed to death. What would we say to each other anyway? If he could ever use his voice again. That we're sorry for the other's lot? That we ache for the other's pain? That we're glad we had the chance to know each other, in the end?

I can't breathe. My stomach has dropped through my feet, along with every other organ inside of my body. It is not so much him that makes me this way, but it's the stuff I've been avoiding all day long in the Capitol. Stupidly, I thought I could just let go of everything, not worry about the past. Hope that Peeta and him living is even a possibility. It was almost childishly naïve and amusing, for President Snow no doubt, that I had believed any of this. Guilt is one of the strongest things holding me in place. Darius shouldn't be glad he knew me. If I had been there to stop Thread, he wouldn't have stepped forward to save Gale. Wouldn't be an Avox now. And more specifically, wouldn't be my Avox, because President Snow has so obviously put him here for my own benefit. Or insanity.

I can't look at Peeta. Not with a living reminder of Gale standing right there. I twist my wrist from Haymitch's grasp and head down to my old bedroom, locking the door behind me. I sit on the side of my bed, elbows on my knees, forehead on my fists, and watch my glowing suit in the darkness, imagining I am in my old home in District 12, huddled beside the fire. I close my eyes, fleeing the iniquity, going back to when it was simple, back when all I had to worry about was an upcoming hunt and my family's next meal.


	6. Chapter Six

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: Short, sweet, and important. Sorry about the length, but hopefully the amount of newness in here will make up for that. If not review to complain about it. Anyway to improve my writing will be helpful. Tips. Learned experiences. I want to hear them all. Thanks for reading, sorry for typos, and please review. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Six<p>

When Effie eventually knocks on the door to summon me to dinner, I get up and take off my suit, fold it neatly, and set it on the table with my crown. In the bathroom, I wash the dark streaks of makeup from my face. I dress in a simple shirt and pants and go down the hall to the dining room.

I'm not aware of much at dinner except that Darius and the redheaded Avox girl are our severs. I push around the food on my plate with disgust. My stomach churns at the thought of eating anything. Effie, Haymitch, Cinna, Portia, and Peeta are all there, talking about the opening ceremonies, I suppose. But the only time I really feel present is when I purposely knock a dish of peas to the floor and, before anyone can stop me, crouch down to clean them up. Darius is right by me when I send the dish over, and we two are briefly side by side, obscured from view, as we scoop up the peas. For just one moment our hands meet. I can feel his skin, rough under the buttery sauce from the dish. In the tight, desperate clench of our fingers are all the words we will never be able to say.

Then Effie's clucking at me from behind about how "That isn't you job, Katniss!" and he lets go.

When we go in to watch the recap of the opening ceremonies, I wedge myself between Cinna and Haymitch on the couch because I don't want to be next to Peeta. This awfulness with Darius belongs to Gale and me, and maybe even Haymitch, but not to Peeta. He might have known Darius to nod hello, but Peeta wasn't Hob the way the rest of us were.

Something about that twinges in my heart, about feeling less deserving of each other, but I shove it aside. I'm still angry with him for laughing at me along with the other victors, and the last thing I want is his sympathy and comfort. I haven't changed my mind about saving him in the arena, but I don't owe him more than that.

As I watch the procession to the City Circle, I start to think that it's bad enough that they dress us all up in costumes and parade us through the streets in chariots on a regular year, but aging victors, it turns out, look pitiful with such acts. As soon as the recapping is over, I stand up and thank Cinna and Portia for their amazing work and head off to bed. Effie calls a reminder to meet early for breakfast to work out our training strategy, but even her chirping voice sounds hollow. Poor Effie. She finally had a decent year in the Games with Peeta and me, and now it's all broken down into a mess that even she can't put a positive spin on. In Capitol terms, I'm guessing this counts as a true tragedy.

Soon after I go to bed, there's a quiet knock on my door, but I ignore it. It has to be Peeta and I don't want Peeta tonight. Especially not with Darius around. It's almost as bad as if Gale were here. Gale. I wither slightly underneath my blankets. How am I supposed to let him go with Darius haunting the hallways?

The knock comes again, no matter that I've ignored it for ten minutes.

Uncertainly, I get up out of bed and lean into the wall directly next to the door, listening. "Katniss!" I hear Peeta whispering against the wood. "Please, open the door..."

Peeta sounds so distressed that I do, only a crack, and I scowl at him hunched against the darkness of the hallway. "What?" I ask.

Peeta just looks relieved to see my face. Then I notice his clammy hands and the cold sweat clinging to his forehead. Nightmares, I know on instinct, though I'm not used to facing a scared Peeta. I remember that he said they're usually about losing me... and normally he wouldn't budge on it when I didn't want him in my bed, but he'd just wanted to see me, I realize, feeling guilty, for causing him needless worry. If I had come running to Peeta nightmare shaken he would have welcomed me with open arms.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I say. I use the one thing he always offers, but Peeta hesitates, his eyes sweeping around the hall. "Come in." I move back and open the door wider, then close and lock it at his back.

Not until I'm sitting down and have invited him, does Peeta join me on the bed. For once, I get to be the protector, Gale or Darius forgotten, and I pull him close, his head resting on my shoulder. My hands running through his damp, tangled hair. It's a natural feeling, something I would do to Prim. "What happened?"

Peeta doesn't begin for a long while, then he says, "Its stupid."

"Tell me." Trust me.

"It was a good dream to start.."

"Good how?" I prompt, and I feel the faint hint of a smile against the bare skin of my collarbone.

"We were married, and we lived in a bakery back in District 12, our own, not my family's." Peeta shifts suddenly leaning more comfortably against the side of my body, one of his hands resting lightly draped over my waist. "We were happy. And, there was a little girl... our daughter."

My shoulders flinch slightly at the suggestion, and Peeta stops completely, before I say, "Go on."

"Its stupid," Peeta repeats, and his voice picks up faster, just to get it over with. "There was a reaping, and she was only a little girl, only five. We thought she'd be safe, but... they changed the rules, she was taken from us. To the Games... and we couldn't do anything but watch..."

And he didn't finish. He didn't have to. It is a fear I've had since I was a little girl myself. Losing a child to the Hunger Games, knowing the pain that Rue's parent's have endured. What my Mother might have felt if I were lost. Before long, Peeta falls back asleep, and I slip away not long after.

Children dominate the centric horror of my nightmares. First I watch, frozen and helpless, while gloved hands carry out bawling, blood covered infants from a pit of gore. Then I'm back in the arena, watching Rue get stabbed through the abdomen repeatedly. I see my sister, my little duckling, being dragged away kicking and screaming by Capitol attendants while my mother is kneeling in front of our old Seam house, sobbing into her palms. But, finally, shaking, terrified, I am standing in front of a mirror, staring into my own reflection, but when I look down my hands are resting over a bulge of my stomach. Blood stains run along the sides of the mirror, by tiny fingerprints, incomprehensible shapes drawn. There is a shadow in the mirror behind me, and for some reason I think it is Peeta, but when I turn my head it's President Snow, and his puffy lips are dripping with bloody saliva, hungrily staring at the child inside of me.

When I wake, heart pounding, Peeta's rolled half the bed away. I don't want to disturb his sleep, or fill his head with what I've just seen, so I stumble into the bathroom and vomit violently in the sink. I strip off my sweaty clothes, careless, and fall back into bed, naked, and somehow find sleep again.


	7. Chapter Seven

**_Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended._**

_A/N: Thanks for reading, sorry for typos. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Seven<p>

I wake up, my body morphed up against Peeta's sleeping back. Somehow, during the night I'd rolled from my side of the bed, onto his, and unconsciously stanched myself up against his innocently dormant form. He's still slumbering. I don't know what woke me, but my heart is slamming against my ribcage, and it echos inside my ear drums, drowning out most everything else.

One of my arms are thrown over his side and across his chest, underneath his arm. Squashed up against his back are my bare breasts and my icy cold feet are pressed against his sizzling warm calf. And from where my head lays on his pillow I can smell that scent again. Nutmeg, sugar cookies, musk, everything I could ever want.

Making me hungry in every way possible.

I know I should roll away. Roll away, flee to the bathroom, change in peace. Where, after I slip away, Peeta never even has to know about this. But it's just so... and I'm so weak... and Peeta's suddenly stirring, his shoulders moving back, trying to turn.

Startled, terrified, I close my eyes, and feign sleep. Unable to face the issue, that I'm entirely untried to.

When Peeta has turned over completely, my arm pulled off of his side, I know because I hear his breath catch. I feel him lean away, and notice the sound of his artificial leg touching the floor, the springs groaning as he sits up. I peek out of my eyelashes to see Peeta's turned his back to me, sitting on the edge of the bed. His hands are fists at his side, his spine rigid.

The effect it has on him is nothing short of satisfying. But wrong, so, so wrong, and different and not me. It's the hunger. The side of me that I didn't think would be. That wants things like this; nakedness, beds, Peeta. And so it's not really me, who reaches out and grasps his wrist when he makes to stand and leave, it's the want. The fire begging for more fuel.

"Peeta," I say.

He still hasn't moved, facing away. "Katniss..." Peeta's voice suggests something wrong.

"Lay back down." My tone merits no question, no request, but an order. And after a few minutes, Peeta stiffly sits back down on the edge of the bed, then lays out along the very side of the space between me and open air, his face pointed at the ceiling, his eyes modestly cast there.

"I should go," Peeta says.

"Stay."

"I don't think, this isn't..." His face turns ten different shades of red. "What are you doing?"

Nothing that will hurt anyone. "Close your eyes," I say and he's eager to obey, most likely hoping I'm going to use that time to make myself decent. Instead, it's to buy myself thinking time, as I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. I know I should be feeling vulnerable without clothes on, but it doesn't protrude me in the least, not with Peeta around.

At first, my hand is hesitant, but then I grow more sure, and I take his hand into mine. Peeta's whole form alters, and when I roll closer, onto my side, one leg pressed against his, he lets out a nervous series of exhales. "Trust me," I tell him, then I press my lips into the back of his hand. Mimicking something he did to me once.

"I do," he says.

Then I pull his arm around me, his hand flat against my middle back. Peeta begins to shake his head, eyes still closed, but I stop that with my hands, clutching each side of his face. It forces him to turn on his side, facing me, and he opens his eyes, meeting my hungry gaze.

"Kiss me," and he does. Light at first, then stronger, deeper. There's still a few inches of space between our bodies. My hands glide from his face to around his neck, pulling myself closer, but the hand I put around me locks me in place, an agonizing amount of space wedged between us.

No matter what I do, that space is there, so I let my mouth travel to the salty skin of his neck. Peeta's breathing turns heavy, growing tenser, and my heart is rattling inside of me. Then, abruptly, as my teeth nip into the skin of his shoulder, my thighs are moved apart by his knee.

I gasp, the open air a jolt from my center, through my lower abdomen, and splintering itself all the way through my shoulders and back. A pleasure, so teasing, so fleeting, so foreign that in my shock, Peeta's managed to pull away, sit back up with his back toward me.

"No," I say, reaching a hand out to him. "Lay down."

"Katniss, we shouldn't be doing this."

"Why not? Because we're not married? Because you don't believe me whenever I say that I care? You don't think I want this?" I'm breathless, and even my argument sounds a bit more harsh than it should be. "Because we're going to be dead in a few days? Those all sound like weak excuses to me."

"Because... because you're more to me than this."

"And I want this from you, Peeta." You gave me this hunger, you cure it, fulfill it, dammit.

There is silence, then, self consciously, "I don't know what to do."

"Come here." And he does, rolls over obediently, stares eagerly at my face, completely attentive. "Give me your hand." He does and I lead it to just below my breasts, laying warm and heavy against my ribcage. Already it sends a wither of new pleasures down to my toes and Peeta's face grows a little more uncertain, a little more excited. "Kiss me."

Again and again he does, at first just light, little kisses. Slow, wet, deep. Then Peeta seems to get into it, seems to realize his hands still hasn't moved in what couldn't have been longer than a few minutes, but felt like eons. The warm fingers trail up, hesitant. "Katniss," Peeta gasps against my lips.

I nod, wordlessly, deepening the kiss in the only way I know how, parting his lips with my tongue, experimentally. The fingers are softer and less unsure. Brushing upwards, nails trailing over hot skin. Shivers running down my spine. His thumb traces the outline of my breast, timid, then they travel elsewhere. They work there, then move right passed, up my collarbone, along my shoulder, down my arm, and I close my eyes, give into the feel of his hands. The occasional kiss, the sound of his ragged, excited breathing.

Peeta has traced my upper body five times over, every last inch, from neck to ribcage, before he finally leans forward and places a kiss at the hollow my throat. My breathing grows sparse. His other hand lies useless between us and I grab it, pull it flat across my stomach. "Trust me," I say when he pauses at this new step.

A few more kisses lower, then his other hand finally moves, an inch, then another. Hungrier, feathery-light fingers, not unwanted, brush past my center. It sets a wave of the fire roiling up my body, from my bones outward, from an ache in my lower abdomen to my heating cheeks. Tingling every nerve.

They stop after that, scared, and my fingers move to his, pulling them back. More permission. And the fingers turn into a hand, caressing past, then cupping me. I gasp, and his mouth finds mine.

Then there's a knock on our door and both of our hearts stop dead.

Peeta throws himself away from me, and I sit up, clutching my knees to my chest, just as the harmless, chirping voice of Effie calls through my bedroom door, "Time to get up! It's another big, big, big day! Don't be late for breakfast, strategy meeting," her last words ringing out like a train's whistle.

When we hear her clacking footsteps walk away, my heart starts up again and Peeta rushes out something about probably needing to go, and it would be best and that he's sorry and tagged on an awkward thank you there at the end, just before he slipped out the door, redder than blood.

Numbly, once my breathing returns to normal, I get up and do everything that needs to be done. I shower and dress in the outfit Cinna had brought to me for training. I expect it matches Peeta, which amuses me some. I – we – got away with sleeping in, but I don't want to go to breakfast and discuss our Game strategy. What's to discuss anyway? Every victor already knows what everybody else can do. Or used to be able to do, anyway. So Peeta and I will continue to act in love and that's that. Somehow I'm just not into talking about it, especially with Darius standing mutely by. Though he didn't seem to protrude on my thoughts before.

I find I'm growing hungry as I avoid meeting them so I order some food from the menu in my room by speaking into a mouthpiece. In a minute, sausage, eggs, potatoes, bread, juice, and hot chocolate appears. I eat my fill, trying to drag out the minutes until ten o'clock, when we have to go down to the Training Center. I'm sucking the last dregs of liquid from the cup of hot chocolate my mind wanders briefly to the nightmares of last night and a violent chill rakes over the surface of my skin. What irks me the most wasn't the bloody parts, or even Prim being violently ripped away from my mother, but it is the look on Snow's face as he leered ravenously at the place my child nested. These thoughts are interrupted by Haymitch, pounding at my door around nine-thirty, ordering me to the dining room now!

Still, I brush my teeth before meandering down the hall, effectively killing another five minutes. The dining room's empty except for Peeta and Haymitch, whose face is flushed with drink and anger. On his wrist he wears a solid-gold bangle with a pattern of flames–this must be his concession to Effie's matching-token plan–that he twists unhappily. It's a very handsome bangle, really, but the movement makes it seem like something confining, a shackle, rather than a piece of jewelery. "You're late," he snarls at me.

"Sorry. I slept in after the nightmares of– " my voice caught there. I didn't want to say anything about children, not when I know Peeta's nightmares are so similar. Plus in that exact moment, I catch Peeta's eyes from behind Haymitch's back, and he blushes and turns away so similar to the way he used to all the time when we were younger that I can't help but stumble over it.

Haymitch gives me a scowl, glances between the two of us, but then relents, wanting to move forward. "All right, never mind. Today in-training you've got two jobs. One, stay in love."

"Obviously," I say.

"And two, make some friends," Haymitch continues over me.

"No," I say. "I don't trust any of them, I can't stand most of them, and I'd rather operate with just the two of us."

"That's what I said at first, but—" Peeta begins.

"But it won't be enough," Haymitch insists. "You're going to need more allies this time around."

"Why?" I ask.

"Because you're at a distinct disadvantage. Your competitors have known each other for years. So who do you think they're going to target first?" he says.

"Us. And nothing we're going to do is going to override any old friendship," I say. "So why bother?"

"Because you can fight. You're popular with the crowd. That could still make you desirable allies. But only if you let the others know you're willing to team up with them," says Haymitch.

"You mean you want us in the Career pack this year?" I ask, unable to hide my distaste. Traditionally the tributes from Districts 1, 2, and 4 join forces, possibly taking in a few other exceptional fighters, and hunt down the weaker competitors.

"That's been our strategy, hasn't it? To train like Careers?" For Peeta's benefit, I remark silently. "And who makes up the Career pack is generally agreed upon before the Games begin. Peeta barely got in with them last year."

I think of the loathing I felt when I discovered Peeta was with the Careers during the last Games. "So we're to try to get in with Finnick and Brutus—is that what you're saying?"

"Not necessarily. Everyone's a victor. Make your own pack if you'd rather. Choose who you like. I'd suggest Chaff and Seeder. Although Finnick's not to be ignored," Haymitch says. "Find someone to team up with who might be of some use to you. Remember, you're not in the ring full of trembling children anymore. These people are all experienced killers, no matter what shape they appear to be in."

There's a slim chance he's right. Only who could I trust? Seeder maybe. But do I really want to make a pact with her, only to possibly have to kill her later? No. Still, I made a pact with Rue under the same circumstances. I tell Haymitch I'll try, even though I think I'll be pretty bad at the whole thing. Plus, I really don't think I'm completely on track with the alliance thing.

Part of me just wants to cut ties, pull Peeta behind me and push through this. I think I could do it, even though logically it seems idiotic. It's just what I want to do, rather than dealing with the other stuff; loose ends.

Effie shows up a bit early to take us down because last year, even though we were on time, we were the last two tributes to show up. But Haymitch tells her he doesn't want her taking us down to the gym. None of the other victors will be showing up with a babysitter, and being the youngest it's even more essential that we come off as self-reliant. So she had to satisfy herself with taking us to the elevator, fussing over our hair, and pushing the button for us.

As soon as the doors are shut Peeta turns to me.

"If you're expecting a kiss, I'd think now's not really the place."

He rolls his eyes. "Sometimes I think you consider me a complete idiot."

"Well, what else am I supposed to think?" I retort.

Peeta doesn't take the comment literally, just smiles it off. "I thought we should talk, about this morning.." His statement is cut short by the doors dinging open and Peeta hurriedly takes me by the hand. I don't realize why at first, then I remember that we're in public now. This is the open and in training we must appear as an inseparable team.

In a low voice, to satisfy him, I tell him, "We can talk about it later." And he nods, that topic mercifully put off for another time.

Effie needn't have fret over us being the last to arrive. Only Brutus and the woman from District 2, Enorbaria, are present. Enorbaria looks to be about thirty and all I can remember about her is that, in hand-to-hand combat, she killed one tribute by ripping open his throat with her teeth. She became so famous for this act that, after she was a victor, she had her teeth cosmetically altered so each one ends in a sharp point like a fang and is inlaid with gold. She has no shortage of admirers in the Capitol.

By ten o'clock, only about half of the tributes have shown up. Atala, the woman who runs training, begins her spiel right on time, unfazed by the poor attendances. Maybe she expected it. I'm sort of relieved, because that means there are a dozen people I don't have to pretend to make friends with. Atala runs through the list of stations, which include both combat and survival skills, and release us to train.

I tell Peeta that I think we'd do best to split up, thus covering more territory. He agrees readily enough, snagging a kiss before he goes off to chuck spears with Brutus and Chaff, and I head over to the knot-tying station. Hardly anyone ever bothers to visit it, even though I told him we were splitting to cover more people, I just don't know how well I could do that.

I like the trainer and he remembers me fondly, maybe because I spent time with him last year. He's pleased when I show him I can still set the trap that leaves an enemy dangling by a leg from a tree. Clearly he took note of my snares in the arena last year and now sees me as an advanced pupil, so I ask him to review every kind of knot that might come in handy and a few that I'll probably never use.

I'd be content to spend the morning alone with him, but after about an hour and a half, someone puts his arms around me from behind, his fingers easily finishing off the complicated knot I've been sweating over. Of course it's Finnick, who seems to have spent his childhood doing nothing but wielding tridents and manipulating ropes into fancy knots for nets.

I watch for a minute while he picks up a length of rope, makes a noose, and then pretends to hang himself for amusement. I narrow my eyes, then roll them at his ridiculous expression, heading over to another vacant station where tributes can learn to build fires. I already make excellent fires, but I'm still pretty dependent on matches for starting them. So the trainer has me work with flint, steel, and some charred cloth. This is much harder than it looks, and even working intently as I can, it takes me about an hour to get a fire going. I look up with a triumphant smile only to find I have company.

The two tributes from District 3 are beside me, struggling to start a decent fire with matches. I think about leaving, but I really want to try using the flint again. Plus, I might as well try to make Haymitch happy. They're a bearable choice. Both are small in stature with ashen skin and black hair. The woman, Wiress, is probably around my mother's age and speaks in a quiet, intelligent voice. But right away I notice she has a habit of dropping off her words in mid-sentence, as if she's forgotten you're there. Beetee, the man, is older and somewhat fidgety. He wears glasses but spends a lot of time looking under them.

They're a little strange, but I'm pretty sure neither of them is going to try to make me uncomfortable by doing something to tease my 'pureness'. And they're from District 3. Maybe they can even confirm my suspicions of an uprising there.

I glance around the Training Center. Peeta is at the center of the ribald circle of knife throwers. The morphlings from District 6 are in the camouflage station, painting each other's faces with bright pink swirls. The male tribute from District 5 is vomiting wine at the sword-fighting station. Finnick and the old woman from his district are using the archery set up. And Johanna Mason is naked again and oiling her skin down for wrestling lessons. I decide to stay put.

Wiress and Beetee make decent company. They seem friendly enough but don't pry. We talk about our talents, they tell me they both invent things, which makes my supposed interest in fashion seem pretty weak. Wiress brings up some sort of stitching device she's working on.

"It sense the density of the fabric and selects the strength," she says, and then becomes absorbed in a bit of dry straw before she can even continue what she was saying.

"The strength of the thread," Beetee finishes explaining. "Automatically on its own. It rules out human error." Then he talks about his recent success of creating a musical chip that was small enough that it could be concealed in a flake of glitter but could hold hours of songs. I remember Octavia talking about this during the wedding shoot, and I see a possible chance to allude to the uprising.

"Oh, yeah. My prep team was all upset a few months ago, I think, because they couldn't get a hold of that," I say casually. "I guess a lot of orders from District Three were getting backed up."

Beetee examines me under his glasses. "Yes. Did you have any similar back ups in coal production this year?" he asks.

"No. Well, we lost a couple of weeks when they brought in a new Head Peacekeeper and his crew, but nothing major," I say. "To production. I mean, two weeks sitting around your house doing nothing just means two weeks of being hungry for most people."

I think they understood what I'm trying to say. That we've had no uprising. "Oh, that's a shame," says Wiress in a slightly disappointed voice. "I found your district very..." she trails off, distracted by something in her head.

"Interesting," Beetee fills in. "We both did."

I felt bad knowing their district must have suffered much more than mine did. I feel I have to defend my people. It made us come off as cowards who are just made of talk. "Well, there aren't many of us in Twelve," I say. " Not that you'd know nowadays by the size of the Peacekeeper force. But were interesting enough, I guess."

As we move over to the shelter station, Wiress stops and gazes up at the stands where the Gamemakers are roaming around, eating and drinking, sometimes taking notice to us. "Look," she says giving her head a slight nod in their direction. I look up and see Plutarch Heavensbee in the magnificent purple robe with the fur-trimmed collar that designated him Head Gamemaker He's eating a turkey leg.

I don't see why this merits comment, but I say, "Yes, he's been promoted to Head Gamemaker this year."

"No, no. There by the corner of the table. You can just..." says Wiress.

Beetee squints under his glasses. "Just make out."

I stare in that direction, perplexed. But then I see it. A patch of space about six inches of it, in the shape of a square at the corner of the table that seems almost to be vibrating. It's as if the air is rippling in tiny visible waves, distorting the sharp edges of the wood and a goblet of wine someone has set there.

"A force field. They've set one up between the Gamemakers and us. I wonder what brought that on," Beetee says.

"Me, probably," I confess. "Last year I shot an arrow at them during my private training session." Beetee and Wiress look at me curiously. "I was provoked. So, do all force fields have a spot like that?"

"Chink," says Wiress vaguely.

"In the armor, as it were," finishes Beetee. "Ideally it'd be invisible, wouldn't it?"

I want to ask them more, but lunch is announced. I look for Peeta, but he's hanging out with a group of about ten other victors, so I decide to eat with District 3. Maybe I can get Seeder to join us.

But when we make our way into the dining area, I see some of Peeta's gang have other ideas. They're dragging all the smaller tables to form one large table so that we all have to eat together. Now I don't know what to do. Even at school I used to avoid eating at a crowded table. Frankly, I'd probably have sat alone if Madge hadn't made a habit of joining me. I guess I'd have eaten with Gale except, being two grades apart, our lunch never fell at the same time.

I would sit next to Peeta, but the thought that he might distract me seems certain. Still undecided, I take a tray anyway and start making my way around the food-laden carts that ring the room. Peeta catches up with me at the stew. "How's it going?"

"Good. Fine. I like the District Three victors," I say. "Wiress and Beetee."

"Really?" he asks. "They're something of a joke to the others."

"Why does that not surprise me?" I say. I think of how Peeta was always surrounded at school by a crowd of friends. It's amazing, really, that he ever took any notice of me except to think I was odd.

"Johanna's nicknamed them Nuts and Volts," he says. "I think she's Nuts and he's Volts."

"And so I'm stupid for thinking they might be useful. Because of something Johanna Mason said while she was oiling her breasts for wrestling." I bit my cheek the second the words were out.

"Actually I think the nickname's have been around for years. And I didn't mean that as an insult. I'm just sharing information," he says. His tone is cautious and border lining on an inquisition, but he wasn't going to say anything that could lead to something else.

To the outsiders it just looks like we are whispering together, like perfect little love birds.

"Well, Wiress and Beetee are smart. They invent things. They could tell by sight that a force field had been put up between us and the Gamemakers. And if we have to have allies, I want them." I toss the ladle back in a pot of stew, splattering us both with gravy.

"What are you so angry about?" Peeta demands, wiping the gravy from his shirtfront. "Because Johanna? Because I teased you?" Then he pauses, pursing his lips before scanning the area and whispering, "It's not about this morning, is it?" He looks pained. "What were you saying earlier, in the elevator?"

"Forget it," I say tersely with the shake of my head. "It doesn't matter, what I said. No, not this morning, that was just... not bad." Peeta shifts his weight onto his opposite foot and I bite my cheek now, to hide a sly smile. "It's just a lot of things."

"Darius," he says.

"Darius. The Games. Haymitch making us team up with the others," I say.

"It can be just you and me, you know," says Peeta, placing a gentle hand on my lower back.

I don't immediately move away, and his words give me a jolt of pleasure as well as the warmth of his palm reassuring me. I liked that idea a surprising amount, especially coming from him. He must have seen the light in my face because he's suddenly smiling. "Is that what you want?" he asks.

"I... don't know." I don't want to let on how much I like it. Plus, "Maybe Haymitch is right about the ally thing. Don't tell him I said so, but he usually is, where the Games are concerned."

"Well, then, you can have the final say about our allies. But right now I'm leaning towards Chaff and Seeder," Peeta compromises.

"I'm okay with Seeder, not Chaff."

"Come on and eat with him. I promise, I won't let him kiss you again," he assures me.

I agree to it, but as we are walking towards the table, just before we're back in hearing range, Peeta adds under his breath, in a light cheerful tone, "If you change your mind about doing this alone, just tell me and I'll be right there next to you." I nod curtly and there is no further discussion on the matter.

Chaff doesn't seem as bad at lunch. He's sober, and while he talks too loud and makes bad jokes a lot, most of them are at his own expense. I can see why he would be good for Haymitch, whose thoughts run so darkly. But I'm still not sure I'm ready to team up with him. I try hard to be more sociable, not just with Chaff, but with the group at large.

After lunch I do the edible-insect station with the District 8 tributes; Cecelia, who's got three kids at home, and Woof, a really old guy who's hard of hearing and doesn't seem to know what's going on since he keeps trying to stuff poisonous bugs in his mouth. I wish I could mention meeting Twill and Bonnie in the woods, but I can't quite figure out how.

I really start to like Cecelia, who talks calmly and sweetly to the bewildered, dazed Woof, when I would have lost my patience. She tells me about her kids, all boys, and she confesses that if she ever had a daughter, she would have wished her to be like Prim, my little sister. Cecelia recalls almost every word that she'd said in the family interviews and the ones they took during the Victory Tour.

Cashmere and Gloss, the sister and brother from District 1, invite me over and we make hammocks for a while. They're polite but cool, and I spend the whole time thinking about how I killed both tributes from their district, Glimmer and Marvel, last year, and that they probably knew them and might even have been their mentors. Both my hammock and my attempt to connect with them are mediocre at best. I join Enorbaria at sword training and exchange a few comments, but it's clear neither of us wants to team up.

Finnick appears again when I'm picking up fishing tips, but mostly just to introduce me to Mags, the elderly woman who's also from District 4. Between her district accent and her garbled speech–possibly she's had a stroke–I can't make out more than one in four words. But I swear she can make a decent fish hook out of anything; a thorn, a wishbone, an earring. After a while I tune out the trainer and simply try to copy whatever Mags does. When I make a pretty good hook out of a bent nail and fasten it to some strands of my hair, she gives me a toothless smile and an unintelligible comment I think might be a praise.

Suddenly I remember how she volunteered to replace the young, hysterical woman in her district. It couldn't be because she thought she had a chance of winning. She did it to save the girl, just like I volunteered last year to save Prim. And I decided I want her on my team.

Great. Now I have to go back and tell Haymitch I want an eighty-year-old and Nuts and Volts and the most motherly victor in all of existence for my allies. He'll love that.

So I give up trying to make friends and go over to the archery range for some sanity. Maybe I could work off some of my frustration. It's wonderful there, getting to try out all the different bows and arrows. The trainer, Tax, seeing that the standing targets offer no challenge for me, begins to launch silly fake birds high into the air for me to hit.

At first, it seems stupid, but it turns out to be kind of fun. Much more like hunting a moving creäture. Since I'm hitting everyone he throws, he starts increasing the number of birds he sends airborne. I forget the rest of the gym and the victors and how miserable I am and lose myself in the shooting. When I manage to take down five birds in one round, I realize it's so quiet I can hear each one hit the floor. I turn and see the majority of the victors have stopped to watch me. Their faces show everything from envy to hatred to admiration.

After training, Peeta and I hang out, waiting for Haymitch and Effie to show up for dinner. It's mostly spent loitering in the television room, in sight of the Capitol attendants, so we don't get around to talking or doing anything of importance. When we're called to eat, Haymitch pounces on me immediately. "So at least half the victors have instructed their mentors to request you as an ally. I know it can't be you sunny personality."

"They saw her shoot," says Peeta with a smile. "Actually, I saw her shoot, for real, for the first time. I'm about to put in a formal request myself."

"You're that good?" Haymitch asks me. "So good that Brutus wants you?"

I shrug. "But I don't want Brutus. I want Mags, and Cecelia, and District Three."

"Of course you do." Haymitch sighs and orders a bottle of wine. "I'll tell everybody you're still making up your mind."

After my shooting exhibition, I still get teased some, but I no longer feel like I'm being mocked. In fact, I feel as if I've somehow been initiated into the victors' circle. During the next two days, I spend time with almost everybody headed for the arena. Even the morphlings, who, with Peeta's help, paint me into a field of yellow flowers. Even Finnick, who gives me an hour of trident lessons in exchange for an hour of archery instruction. And the more I come to know these people, the worse it is. Because, on the whole, I don't hate them. And some I like. And a lot of them are so damaged that my natural instinct would be to protect them. But all of them must die if I'm to save Peeta.

With Haymitch constantly hounding us from dawn to dusk about strategy plans, and Darius that haunts the hallways by night, Peeta and I have found very little time to talk and even less time alone, to continue or not to continue whatever it is that I had started. So when dinner ended the night before the final training day, and Haymitch is so drunk and exhausted that he merely wanders off with his bottle of alcohol, Peeta catches my eyes and we–reluctantly on my part–both excuse ourselves from Effie's presence.

I make it to my doorway, before Peeta rests a hand on my elbow, and I turn to look up at him. "Maybe... we should talk out here?" Peeta asks.

"What if Effie or Haymitch come along?" I say, shaking my head. "If you really need to talk about what happened, then come on. I don't have all my life."

Inside, I sit on the bed and Peeta stands nearer the door, clearly on edge. I don't want to have this conversation. I'm confused enough about what I want from him, and to talk about it seems unnecessary on a lot of humiliating levels. But Peeta has been persistent on the subject.

There's no beginning explanation, no indication at all to what he's talking about, and Peeta says, "Aren't you worried? At all?"

"Worried about what?"

Peeta makes a frustrated, helpless hand motion. "All of this. I don't know, you're acting so different.." He looks away from me, at the ground, discomfited. And I realize oh so suddenly, that he still doesn't trust this new bond. Doesn't want to hope in it. Doesn't want to be hurt again, when it turns out I was lying, while he's been playing a fool the whole long time.

I'm frustrated and uncomfortable myself, now, and I shift on the bed, searching my mind frantically for the right words. Except, I'm not good at words, or talking. Prim had been hard enough to talk to, but Peeta, who lives in the middle of a maze, is even more of a challenge. Prim is easily distracted, Peeta is not.

Almost petulantly, I know I have to admit there is a new bond. How can I deny it? We are closer than ever, on so many different levels. All the new touches, physical attractions and wants that neither of us have known. Emotionally, because I tried to let him in, minimally, as a small thank you, a pay back, and he attempted to do the same in return. None of these things were admitted out loud, though. Not acknowledged at the forefront of the situation, something I hated and still loathe, to do.

But I know it's the only way I can get him to believe me.

Sacrifice a little self comfort, to give Peeta more. Just like in the Games, when I forced myself to tell him that he had no competition anywhere. An extra scrap of drift wood for him to hold onto.

I swallow hard and get the words out. "I like kissing you."

"I like kissing you, too," says Peeta.

My arms cross tightly over my chest, eyes cast to my lap. "And I liked what you did, the other morning."

"I liked that, too."

I wait, for something more, an objection, a confession, anything. The finger nails of my left hand are leaving indents on my right forearm. "Then what's there to worry about?" I ask peevishly, when it became too much, waiting for him to react.

"Effie," Peeta says, smiling. "She might catch us."

And then he moves across the room to kiss me.


	8. Chapter Eight

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: Anybody else tired of all the repeat? Because I am. But I promise! I promise in about two chapters by the start of the Game everything will be VASTLY different. These Games aren't going to be what you think. Thank you to everyone who reviewed. Sorry for typos. Thanks for reading. Enjoy. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Eight<p>

The final day of training is upon us the next morning and that means it's time for our private sessions. We each get fifteen minutes before the Gamemakers to amaze them with our skills, but I don't know what any of us might have to show them. There's a lot of kidding about it at lunch. What we might do. Sing, dance, strip, tell jokes. Mags, who I can understand a little better now, decides she's just going to take a nap. I don't know what I'm going to do. Shoot some arrows, I guess. Haymitch said to surprise them if we could, but I'm fresh out of ideas.

As the girl from 12, I'm scheduled to go last. The dining room gets quieter and quieter as the tributes file out to go perform. It's easier to keep up the irreverent, invincible manner we've all adopted when there are more of us. As people disappear through the door, all I can think is that they have a matter of days to live.

Peeta and I are finally left alone. He reaches across the table to take my hands. "Decided what to do for the Gamemakers yet?"

I shake my head. "I can't really use them for target practice this year, with the force field up and all. Maybe make some fishhooks. What about you?"

"Not a clue. I keep wishing I could bake a cake or something," he says.

"Do some more camouflage," I suggest.

"If the morphlings have left me anything to work with," he says wryly. "They've been glued to that station since training started."

We sit in silence awhile and then I blurt out the thing that's on both our minds. "How are we going to kill these people, Peeta?"

"I don't know." He leans his forehead down on our entwined hands.

"I don't want them as allies. Why did Haymitch want us to get to know them?" I say. "It'll make it so much harder than last time. Except for Rue maybe. But I guess I never really could've killed her, anyway. She was just too much like Prim."

Peeta looks up at me, his brow creased in thought. "Her death was the most despicable, wasn't it?"

"None of them were very pretty," I say, thinking of Glimmer's and Cato's ends.

They call Peeta, so I wait by myself. Fifteen minutes pass. Then half an hour. The delay gives me time to think. About not only just how we really are going to kill these people, but also about last night. Nothing much did happen, aside kissing, but for me it felt like a milestone. Peeta wouldn't blink twice about it, though I'm sure he enjoys the kisses almost as much as me, or more, it's the admittance that I'm snagged on, the actual talking that we accomplished...

When I go in, I smell the sharp odor of cleaner and notice that one of the mats has been dragged to the center of the room. The mood is very different from last year's, when the Gamemakers were half drunk and distractedly picking at tidbits from the banquet table. They whisper among themselves, looking somewhat annoyed. What did Peeta do? Something to upset them? I feel a pang of worry. That isn't good. I don't want Peeta singling himself out as a target. That's part of my job. But how did he upset them? Because I'd love to do just that and more. To break through the smug veneer of those who use their brains to find amusing ways to kill us. To make them realize that while we're vulnerable to the Capitol's cruelties, they are as well.

Do you have any idea how much I hate you? I think. You, who have given your talents to the Games?

I try to catch Plutarch Heavensbee's eye, but he seems to be intentionally ignoring me, as he has the entire training period. I remember how he sought me out for a dance, eagerly showed me the mockingjay secreted on his watch. His friendly manner has no place here. How could it, when I'm a mere tribute and he's the Head Gamemaker? So powerful, so removed, so safe…

Suddenly I know just what I'm going to do. Something that will blow anything Peeta did right out of the water. I go over to the knot-tying station and get a length of rope. I start to manipulate it, but it's hard because I've never made this actual knot myself. I've only watched Finnick's clever fingers, and they moved so fast. After about ten minutes, I've come up with a respectable noose. I drag one of the target dummies out into the middle of the room and, using some chinning bars, hang it so it dangles by the neck. Tying its hands behind its back would be a nice touch, but I think I might be running out of time. I hurry over to the camouflage station, where some of the other tributes, undoubtedly the morphlings, have made a colossal mess. But I find a partial container of blood-red berry juice that will serve my needs. The flesh-colored fabric of the dummy's skin makes a good, absorbent canvas. I carefully finger paint the words on its body, concealing them from view. Then I step away to watch the reaction on the Gamemakers' faces as they read the name on the dummy's chest.

Seneca Crane.

The effect on the Gamemakers is immediate and satisfying. Several let out small shrieks. Others lose their grips on their wineglasses, which shatter musically against the ground. Two seem to be considering fainting. The look of shock is unanimous.

Now I have Plutarch Heavensbee's attention. He stares steadily at me as the juice from the peach he crushed in his hand runs through his fingers. Finally he clears his throat and says, "You may go now, Miss Everdeen."

I give a respectful nod and turn to go, but at the last moment I can't resist tossing the container of berry juice over my shoulder. I can hear the contents splatter against the dummy while a couple more wineglasses break. As the elevator doors close before me, I see no one has moved.

That surprised them, I think. It was rash and dangerous and no doubt I will pay for it ten times over. But for the moment, I feel something close to elation and I let myself savor it.

I want to find Haymitch immediately and tell him about my session, but no one's around. I guess they're getting ready for dinner and I decide to go take a shower myself, since my hands are stained from the juice. As I stand in the water, I begin to wonder about the wisdom of my latest trick. The question that should now always be my guide is "Will this help Peeta stay alive?" Indirectly, this might not. What happens in training is highly secretive, so there's no point in taking action against me when no one will know what my transgression was. In fact, last year I was rewarded for my brashness. This is a different sort of crime, though. If the Gamemakers are angry with me and decide to punish me in the arena, Peeta could get caught up in the attack as well. Maybe it was too impulsive. Still… I can't say I'm sorry I did it.

As we all gather for dinner, I notice Peeta's hands are faintly stained with a variety of colors, even though his hair is still damp from bathing. That means he must have done some form of camouflage after all. He catches my stare though, and he grins wickedly over his peas, so much so that I have to turn away, and that only leads to my eyes landing on the suspicious looking Cinna.

Once the soup is served, Haymitch gets right to the issue on everyone's mind. "All right, so how did your private sessions go?"

I exchange a look with Peeta. Somehow I'm not that eager to put what I did into words. In the calm of the dining room, it seems very extreme. "You first," I say to him. "It must have been really special. I had to wait for forty minutes to go in."

Peeta seems to be struck with the same reluctance I'm experiencing. "Well, I—I did the camouflage thing, like you suggested, Katniss." He hesitates. "Not exactly camouflage. I mean, I used the dyes."

"To do what?" asks Portia.

I think of how ruffled the Gamemakers were when I entered the gym for my session. The smell of cleaners. The mat pulled over that spot in the center of the gym. Was it to conceal something they were unable to wash away? "You painted something, didn't you? A picture."

"Did you see it?" Peeta asks.

"No. But they'd made a real point of covering it up," I say.

"Well, that would be standard. They can't let one tribute know what another did," says Effie, unconcerned. "What did you paint, Peeta?" She looks a little misty. "Was it a picture of Katniss?"

"Why would he paint a picture of me, Effie?" I ask, somehow annoyed.

"To show he's going to do everything he can to defend you. That's what everyone in the Capitol's expecting, anyway. Didn't he volunteer to go in with you?" Effie says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Actually, I painted a picture of Rue," Peeta says. "How she looked after Katniss had covered her in flowers."

There's a long pause at the table while everyone absorbs this. "And what exactly were you trying to accomplish?" Haymitch asks in a very measured voice.

"I'm not sure. I just wanted to hold them accountable, if only for a moment," says Peeta. "For killing that little girl."

"This is dreadful." Effie sounds like she's about to cry. "That sort of thinking…it's forbidden, Peeta. Absolutely. You'll only bring down more trouble on yourself and Katniss."

"I have to agree with Effie on this one," says Haymitch.

Portia and Cinna remain silent, but their faces are very serious. Of course, they're right. But even though it worries me, I think what he did was amazing. "I guess this is a bad time to mention I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane's name on it," I say. This has the desired effect. After a moment of disbelief, all the disapproval in the room hits me like a ton of bricks.

"You…hung…Seneca Crane?" says Cinna.

"Yes. I was showing off my new knot-tying skills, and he somehow ended up at the end of the noose," I say.

"Oh, Katniss," says Effie in a hushed voice. "How do you even know about that?"

"Is it a secret? President Snow didn't act like it was. In fact, he seemed eager for me to know," I say. Effie leaves the table with her napkin pressed to her face. "Now I've upset Effie. I should have lied and said I shot some arrows."

"You'd have thought we planned it," says Peeta, giving me just the hint of a smile.

"Didn't you?" asks Portia. Her fingers press her eyelids closed as if she's warding off a very bright light.

"No," I say, looking at Peeta with a new sense of appreciation. In my chest, I could feel the knot pulling ever tighter. "Neither of us even knew what we were going to do before we went in."

"And, Haymitch?" says Peeta. "We decided we don't want any other allies in the arena."

"Good. Then I won't be responsible for you killing off any of my friends with your stupidity," he says.

"That's just what we were thinking," I tell him.

We finish the meal in silence, but when we rise to go into the sitting room, Cinna puts his arm around me and gives me a squeeze. "Come on and let's go get those training scores."

We gather around the television set and a red-eyed Effie rejoins us. The tributes' faces come up, district by district, and their scores flash under their pictures. One through twelve. Predictably high scores for Cashmere, Gloss, Brutus, Enorbaria, and Finnick. Low to medium for the rest.

"Have they ever given a zero?" I ask.

"No, but there's a first time for everything," Cinna answers. And it turns out he's right. Because when Peeta and I each pull a twelve, we make Hunger Games history. No one feels like celebrating, though.

"Why did they do that?" I ask.

"So that the others will have no choice but to target you," says Haymitch flatly. "Go to bed. I can't stand to look at either one of you."

Peeta walks me down to my room in silence, but before he can say good night, I wrap my arms around him and rest my head against his chest. His hands slide up my back and his cheek leans against my hair. "I'm sorry if I made things worse," I say.

"No worse than I did. Why did you do it, anyway?" he says.

"I don't know. To show them that I'm more than just a piece in their Games?" I say. He laughs a little, no doubt remembering the night before the Games last year. We were on the roof, neither of us able to sleep. Peeta had said something of the sort then, but I hadn't understood what he meant. Now I do.

"Me, too," he tells me. "And I'm not saying I'm not going to try. To get you home, I mean. But if I'm perfectly honest about it…"

"If you're perfectly honest about it, you think President Snow has probably given them direct orders to make sure we die in the arena anyway," I say.

"It's crossed my mind," says Peeta.

It's crossed my mind, too. Repeatedly. But while I know I'll never leave that arena alive, I'm still holding on to the hope that Peeta will. After all, he didn't pull out those berries, I did. No one has ever doubted that Peeta's defiance was motivated by love. So maybe President Snow will prefer keeping him alive, crushed and heartbroken, as a living warning to others.

"But even if that happens, everyone will know we've gone out fighting, right?" Peeta asks.

"Everyone will," I reply. And for the first time, I distance myself from the personal tragedy that has consumed me since they announced the Quell. I remember the old man they shot in District 11, and Bonnie and Twill, and the rumored uprisings. Yes, everyone in the districts will be watching me to see how I handle this death sentence, this final act of President Snow's dominance. They will be looking for some sign that their battles have not been in vain. If I can make it clear that I'm still defying the Capitol right up to the end, the Capitol will have killed me…but not my spirit. What better way to give hope to the rebels?

The beauty of this idea is that my decision to keep Peeta alive at the expense of my own life is itself an act of defiance. A refusal to play the Hunger Games by the Capitol's rules. My private agenda dovetails completely with my public one. And if I really could save Peeta…in terms of a revolution, this would be ideal. Because I will be more valuable dead. They can turn me into some kind of martyr for the cause and paint my face on banners, and it will do more to rally people than anything I could do if I was living. But Peeta would be more valuable alive, and tragic, because he will be able to turn his pain into words that will transform people.

Peeta would lose it if he knew I was thinking any of this, so I press my lips against the side of his neck, then say, "So what should we do with our last few days?" There is no doubting what I meant.

"I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you," Peeta replies.

"Come on, then," I say, pulling him into my room. We are both too exhausted to do much. I sink down into sleep, enveloped in his warmth, and when I open my eyes again, daylight's streaming through the windows.

"No nightmares," he says.

"No nightmares," I confirm. "You?"

"None. I'd forgotten what a real night's sleep feels like," he says.

We lie there for a while, in no rush to begin the day. Tomorrow night will be the televised interview, so today Effie and Haymitch should be coaching us. More high heels and sarcastic comments, I think. But then the redheaded Avox girl comes in with a note from Effie saying that, given our recent tour, both she and Haymitch have agreed we can handle ourselves adequately in public. The coaching sessions have been canceled.

"Really?" says Peeta, taking the note from my hand and examining it. "Do you know what this means? We'll have the whole day to ourselves."

"It's too bad we can't go somewhere," I say wistfully.

"Who says we can't?" he asks.

The roof. We order a bunch of food, grab some blankets, and head up to the roof for a picnic. A daylong picnic in the flower garden that tinkles with wind chimes. We eat. We lie in the sun. I snap off hanging vines and use my newfound knowledge from training to practice knots and weave nets. Peeta sketches me. We make up a game with the force field that surrounds the roof—one of us throws an apple into it and the other person has to catch it.

No one bothers us. By late afternoon, I lie with my head on Peeta's lap, making a crown of flowers while he fiddles with my hair, claiming he's practicing his knots. After a while, his hands go still. "What?" I ask.

"I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever," he says.

Usually this sort of comment, the kind that hints of his undying love for me, makes me feel guilty and awful. But I feel so warm and relaxed and beyond worrying about a future I'll never have, I just let the word slip out. "Okay."

I can hear the smile in his voice. "Then you'll allow it?"

"I'll allow it," I say.

His fingers go back to my hair and I doze off, but he rouses me to see the sunset. It's a spectacular yellow and orange blaze behind the skyline of the Capitol. "I didn't think you'd want to miss it," he says.

"Thanks," I say. Because I can count on my fingers the number of sunsets I have left, and I don't want to miss any of them.

Just before the whole sun sinks below the tall buildings of the Capitol, I turn my head to look at Peeta. He's never looked so different to me than right then, bathed in the light of the twilight. My hand reaches his before he can even notice my intent, and when I move to him, there is no hesitation to return my kiss.

We don't go and join the others for dinner, and no one summons us. "I'm glad. I'm tired of making everyone around me so miserable," says Peeta. "Everybody crying. Or Haymitch…" He doesn't need to go on.

We stay on the roof until bedtime and then quietly slip down to my room without encountering anyone. This time neither of us is exhausted. Instead, my face feels warm from a day outside and inside, my reluctance at living a life is locked tight, beyond care, death is certain and all I want to do is not care, to relish in the newfound bond between us, that I might of otherwise struck down in any other situation. The problem is that Peeta seems content to just lay here with me in his arms, even when I use kissing him breathless as a hint. A realization seems to strike him when my lips trail down to the hot, salty skin of his neck, and one of my rebellious hands slips under the hem of his shirt, just to lay against the rigid, soft skin of his stomach, feeling his searing warmth.

One of his hands moves to bring my face to his, and he surprises me by his tongue coaching mine, into his mouth, against lips and teeth, and new flavors to go with this new way of kissing. I want to perfect it, since he seems to do it better than me, so all my attention goes into this focal-point, body, hands forgotten.

Then I feel something hard against my thigh, and I realize that we're plastered together.

Peeta's hands are tangled in my hair, and he uses this to caress and prop my face more accurately with every angle of his. Each kiss is his, he makes them precise, lasting, deep. The few I get in are rasher, shorter, unpracticed. My fingers are tracing up his arm, around the lines of his bicep, until I reach shirt. To get it out of the way, I thought it'd be fair if I took mine off, and in turn it would be a message, not an order or request, speaking would ruin it.

Yet when I pull away, hands peeling it upward Peeta stops me. I try again, stubbornly, but this time his arms tighten around me, pulling me under. Him, sliding on top. The weight of him forces the air from my lungs as a bellow might, but still it comes out as the lightest of sighs. And there's his mouth against mine, a pressure, a heat, a promise of things to come.. a promise I'm rising up to meet.

The shirts become aggravating to me, until Peeta slowly, tantalizingly lento, moves down from my lips to my jaw, to the hammering pulse point on my neck, the shallow pitch of my collar bone, the light dust of freckles on my shoulders. Then he touches the collar of my shirt with his lips, but doesn't stop, only turns his face, finding the nearest bare skin; my arms, the crook of my elbow, the insides of my wrists.

Then Peeta's hands grasp me on both sides of my hips, slides them upward, thumbs hooking on the hem of my shirt, and palms warm against my back, arching me into him, stopping only when the tops of my ribcage begin to show. He starts there, going down my ribcage with light touches of his mouth, and the tickles of his unintentional butterfly kisses driving me mad with impatience.

My breath is ragged by the time Peeta reaches the waistband of my pants.

His hands are still underneath my middle back, holding me at an arc. Just when I think Peeta's decided to stop all together, he slides his lips to kiss up the side of my torso, but this won't do. I won't have anymore of it, and I take his face in a hand and pull it up to mine, kiss him in a jagged opened mouth, wet kiss that Peeta almost immediately detaches himself from.

"Faster," I hiss, breathless, whisper quiet. The ache in my lower abdomen throbs harder, and more urgent each time Peeta moves above me.

"We may only have a few days left," Peeta says back, face at the hollow of my throat, "but I want to do this right."

And I don't really understand what he means, but I have no time to argue, when he sits back on his knees, between my legs, and he stares down at me, a fire, that icy stormy blue fire in his eyes only seen once before.

That rears the fire in my chest to the surface. Something almost forgotten in my haste. When Peeta leans forward again, hands moved to my ankles, pulling my pant legs up by his thumbs, other fingers massaging into the muscles of my calves, I relish in the feel, rise like the way the ocean had, bobbing with each new swell of tease, then going back down, awaiting the next.

Littered kisses on the side of my knee, the peak of my ankle, hot and imprinted into the very minimal revealed skin of my inner thigh. All of it is covered, until he is out and I wrap my legs around his unsuspecting waist, flipping us effortlessly with a whirl, me on top, Peeta's shocked face underneath my heavily breathing one. "My turn," and I can't wait to taste new parts of him.

The first thing I do is take off his shirt, plant a kiss to a shoulder, and start downward. I mean to be like he was, but I can't seem to go so slow, instead, I make up for that in heaviness. His were feathery light, insightful, mine are longer, harder, sucking. I move past the dip of his chest, the very edge of his armpit, swoop along the ribcage, leaving hickeys in my wake. My hands are curled around his shoulders, my back arches to reach new places below, and Peeta's hands are buried in the bed's blankets.

Our first true detour is when I unbutton his pants, and we both are too far gone to pause in slipping them off, but after that I notice the metal, the artificial leg. I pull away, sit back on my knees and hold it between my hands, staring at it, eyebrows furrowed.

"Katniss?" says Peeta.

I don't answer immediately, because I stare at this, wondering, the first guilt I've felt in this situation surfacing. Finally, I say, "Thank you." And place a kiss to the unfeeling, cold metal just where his thigh once was. I move quickly back up to his face, smothering it with kisses, but still he gets a chance to speak.

"For what?"

"For everything," I say. "For never changing, for caring. For being a good person."

That is all I have the patience to talk about, and no more of our breath is wasted on conversation. Hands start to travel, learn things I hadn't known before, his go to places still unfamiliar but not entirely new. When he takes one of my breasts in his mouth I tighten physically, all across my body, resisting the want to curl into a ball, and in my moment of stall, he has us flipped over again. I become useless for the following ten minutes, lost to the new hunger and tormental pleasure he installs into me.

He looses his underwear first. A thing I consider an accomplishment. Then mine go. And we both hold each others hands, guide each others fingers, whisper into each others ears, gasp when the other listens. I hesitate more than him, when it comes to this sort of intimate touching, because it's just uncharted territory, but he's patient, he's helpful. Seems to like whatever I do, no matter if I'm doing it right or wrong.

Then Peeta, not me, is the impatient one.

And I'm the one who wants to dig the heels in.

When it's clear I won't go on, he moves the attention to me, and the kisses on my stomach, are a whole new kind; faster, fiery hot, enough to make me rise unconsciously into him. I'm scared, I realize when my heart is pounding and I'm lightheaded. This is new, hard, frightening, and the only thing that keeps me here, isn't the hunger anymore, not some sacrifice on my part for Peeta, nothing of the sort. No, it's just for the sudden swelling, overwhelming pleasure that rolls over my flesh, and never seems that it will stop.

Selfish as it is, I know it's true. And I can't help but know why I'd always been afraid of these relationships beforehand. Because I'd lose control. I knew I would, I let myself into a relationship like this, marriage, fake or not, or whatever it is Peeta and I share, then eventually I would lose control of my body and wants and willpower against his. So the fear I feel is stronger than everything else, but not strong enough to help me gain control over my own pleasures. All those people I've judged, for having kids when they knew the Hunger Games existed, I understand now, and I feel panic.

So when Peeta draws closer, whispered questions inside his open, kind eyes, I flinch away. I smack my two hands against his bare chest and I know he saw the panic in my face. I wouldn't go on. I'm not ready, this can't happen. I'm scared. It'll hurt, and I'm falling right into the situation I'd planned against and loathed my entire childhood.

I roll away. Curl around myself on the edge of the bed and Peeta gives only one soft touch of my arm, before retreating. "I'm sorry," he says.

"No," I say, "I'm sorry. I just can't. I didn't mean..." to tease you?

"No, it's okay, really, Katniss." He shifts, like he means to touch me again, though only in a reassuring way, but re-thinks it and only says, "This is more than I could have ever wanted."

Peeta is up, pulling on his pants when I turn back around, selfish. "Don't go," I say, still torn, panicked. "You shouldn't have to leave.. I... we can still lay together, you said you wanted to spend.."

He smiles, it looks pained. I can see it's taking all his effort to keep his eyes off my exposed nakedness and the bulge against his newly replaced pants makes me suddenly diffident. I bite my cheek, and nod curtly when he says he'll be back, that he just wants to take a shower. And I put on the most clothing I can find when he's gone, slide into bed, and only actually sleep after Peeta arrives some fifteen later.

The next morning, we're roused by my prep team. The sight of Peeta and me sleeping together is too much for Octavia, because she bursts into tears right away. "You remember what Cinna told us," Venia says fiercely. Octavia nods and goes out sobbing.

Peeta has to return to his room for prep, and I'm left alone with Venia and Flavius. The usual chatter has been suspended. In fact, there's little talk at all, other than to have me raise my chin or comment on a makeup technique. It's nearly lunch when I feel something dripping on my shoulder and turn to find Flavius, who's snipping away at my hair with silent tears running down his face. Venia gives him a look, and he gently sets the scissors on the table and leaves.

Then it's just Venia, whose skin is so pale her tattoos appear to be leaping off it. Almost rigid with determination, she does my hair and nails and makeup, fingers flying swiftly to compensate for her absent teammates. The whole time, she avoids my gaze. It's only when Cinna shows up to approve me and dismiss her that she takes my hands, looks me straight in the eye, and says, "We would all like you to know what a…privilege it has been to make you look your best." Then she hastens from the room.

My prep team. My foolish, shallow, affectionate pets, with their obsessions with feathers and parties, nearly break my heart with their good-bye. It's certain from Venia's last words that we all know I won't be returning. Does the whole world know it? I wonder. I look at Cinna. He knows, certainly. But as he promised, there's no danger of tears from him.

"So, what am I wearing tonight?" I ask, eying the garment bag that holds my dress.

"President Snow put in the dress order himself," says Cinna. He unzips the bag, revealing one of the wedding dresses I wore for the photo shoot. Heavy white silk with a low neckline and tight waist and sleeves that fall from my wrists to the floor. And pearls. Everywhere pearls. Stitched into the dress and in ropes at my throat and forming the crown for the veil. "Even though they announced the Quarter Quell the night of the photo shoot, people still voted for their favorite dress, and this was the winner. The president says you're to wear it tonight. Our objections were ignored."

I rub a bit of the silk between my fingers, trying to figure out President Snow's reasoning. I suppose since I was the greatest offender, my pain and loss and humiliation should be in the brightest spotlight. This, he thinks, will make that clear. It's so barbaric, the president turning my bridal gown into my shroud, that the blow strikes home, leaving me with a dull ache inside. "Well, it'd be a shame to waste such a pretty dress" is all I say.

Cinna helps me carefully into the gown. As it settles on my shoulders, they can't help giving a shrug of complaint. "Was it always this heavy?" I ask. I remember several of the dresses being dense, but this one feels like it weighs a ton.

"I had to make some slight alterations because of the lighting," says Cinna.

I nod, but I can't see what that has to do with anything. He decks me out in the shoes and the pearl jewelry and the veil. Touches up my makeup. Has me walk. "You're ravishing," he says. "Now, Katniss, because this bodice is so fitted, I don't want you raising your arms above your head. Well, not until you twirl, anyway."

"Will I be twirling again?" I ask, thinking of my dress last year.

"I'm sure Caesar will ask you. And if he doesn't, you suggest it yourself. Only not right away. Save it for your big finale," Cinna instructs me.

"You give me a signal so I know when," I say.

"All right. Any plans for your interview? I know Haymitch left you two to your own devices," he says.

"No, this year I'm just winging it. The funny thing is, I'm not nervous at all." And I'm not. However much President Snow may hate me, this Capitol audience is mine.

We meet up with Effie, Haymitch, Portia, and Peeta at the elevator. Peeta's in an elegant tuxedo and white gloves. The sort of thing grooms wear to get married in, here in the Capitol. Back home everything is so much simpler. A woman usually rents a white dress that's been worn hundreds of times. The man wears something clean that's not mining clothes. They fill out some forms at the Justice Building and are assigned a house. Family and friends gather for a meal or bit of cake, if it can be afforded. Even if it can't, there's always a traditional song we sing as the new couple crosses the threshold of their home. And we have our own little ceremony, where they make their first fire, toast a bit of bread, and share it. Maybe it's old-fashioned, but no one really feels married in District 12 until after the toasting.

Peeta takes my hand before the elevator opens, and this time, eerily, I know it's not because the cameras are waiting out there. For reasons beyond me, even with last night, it's not awkward, he's not holding a grudge about my sudden change of mind, and that's all I could hope for, so I hold onto his fingers just as tightly in return.

The other tributes have already gathered offstage and are talking softly, but when Peeta and I arrive, they fall silent. I realize everyone's staring daggers at my wedding dress. Are they jealous of its beauty? The power it might have to manipulate the crowd? Finally Finnick says, "I can't believe Cinna put you in that thing."

"He didn't have any choice. President Snow made him," I say, somewhat defensively. I won't let anyone criticize Cinna.

Cashmere tosses her flowing blond curls back and spits out, "Well, you look ridiculous!" She grabs her brother's hand and pulls him into place to lead our procession onto the stage. The other tributes begin to line up as well. I'm confused because, while they all are angry, some are giving us sympathetic pats on the shoulder, and Johanna Mason actually stops to straighten my pearl necklace.

"Make him pay for it, okay?" she says.

I nod, but I don't know what she means. Not until we're all sitting out onstage and Caesar Flickerman, hair and face highlighted in lavender this year, has done his opening spiel and the tributes begin their interviews. This is the first time I realize the depth of betrayal felt among the victors and the rage that accompanies it. But they are so smart, so wonderfully smart about how they play it, because it all comes back to reflect on the government and President Snow in particular. Not everyone. There are the old throwbacks, like Brutus and Enorbaria,who are just here for another Games, and those too baffled or drugged or lost to join in on the attack. But there are enough victors who still have the wits and the nerve to come out fighting.

Cashmere starts the ball rolling with a speech about how she just can't stop crying when she thinks of how much the people in the Capitol must be suffering because they will lose us. Gloss recalls the kindness shown here to him and his sister. Beetee questions the legality of the Quell in his nervous, twitchy way, wondering if it's been fully examined by experts of late. Finnick recites a poem he wrote to his one true love in the Capitol, and about a hundred people faint because they're sure he means them. By the time Johanna Mason gets up, she's asking if something can't be done about the situation. Surely the creators of the Quarter Quell never anticipated such love forming between the victors and the Capitol. No one could be so cruel as to sever such a deep bond. Seeder quietly ruminates about how, back in District 11, everyone assumes President Snow is all-powerful. So if he's all-powerful, why doesn't he change the Quell? And Chaff, who comes right on her heels, insists the president could change the Quell if he wanted to, but he must not think it matters much to anyone.

By the time I'm introduced, the audience is an absolute wreck. People have been weeping and collapsing and even calling for change. The sight of me in my white silk bridal gown practically causes a riot. No more me, no more star-crossed lovers living happily ever after, no more wedding. I can see even Caesar's professionalism showing some cracks as he tries to quiet them so I can speak, but my three minutes are ticking quickly away.

Finally there's a lull and he gets out, "So, Katniss, obviously this is a very emotional night for everyone. Is there anything you'd like to say?"

My voice trembles as I speak. "Only that I'm so sorry you won't get to be at my wedding…but I'm glad you at least get to see me in my dress. Isn't it just…the most beautiful thing?" I don't have to look at Cinna for a signal. I know this is the right time. I begin to twirl slowly, raising the sleeves of my heavy gown above my head.

When I hear the screams of the crowd, I think it's because I must look stunning. Then I notice something is rising up around me. Smoke. From fire. Not the flickery stuff I wore last year in the chariot, but something much more real that devours my dress. I begin to panic as the smoke thickens. Charred bits of black silk swirl into the air, and pearls clatter to the stage. Somehow I'm afraid to stop because my flesh doesn't seem to be burning and I know Cinna must be behind whatever is happening. So I keep spinning and spinning. For a split second I'm gasping, completely engulfed in the strange flames. Then all at once, the fire is gone. I slowly come to a stop, wondering if I'm naked and why Cinna has arranged to burn away my wedding dress.

But I'm not naked. I'm in a dress of the exact design of my wedding dress, only it's the color of coal and made of tiny feathers. Wonderingly, I lift my long, flowing sleeves into the air, and that's when I see myself on the television screen. Clothed in black except for the white patches on my sleeves. Or should I say my wings. Because Cinna has turned me into a mockingjay.


	9. Chapter Nine

**_Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended._**

_A/N: I'm throwing the new and the hormones at you in this one pretty bad. Hopefully it'll prepare you for the next for reading, sorry for typos. Enjoy. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Nine<p>

I'm still smoldering a little, so it's with a tentative hand that Caesar reaches out to touch my headpiece. The white has burned away, leaving a smooth, fitted veil of black that drapes into the neckline of the dress in the back. "Feathers," says Caesar. "You're like a bird."

"A mockingjay, I think," I say, giving my wings a small flap. "It's the bird on the pin I wear as a token."

A shadow of recognition flickers across Caesar's face, and I can tell he knows that the mockingjay isn't just my token. That it's come to symbolize so much more. That what will be seen as a flashy costume change in the Capitol is resonating in an entirely different way throughout the districts. But he makes the best of it.

"Well, hats off to your stylist. I don't think anyone can argue that that's not the most spectacular thing we've ever seen in an interview. Cinna, I think you better take a bow!" Caesar gestures for Cinna to rise. He does, and makes a small, gracious bow. And suddenly I am so afraid for him. What has he done? Something terribly dangerous. An act of rebellion in itself. And he's done it for me. I remember his words…

"_Don't worry. I always channel my emotions into my work. That way I don't hurt anyone but myself."_

…and I'm afraid he has hurt himself beyond repair. The significance of my fiery transformation will not be lost on President Snow.

The audience, who's been stunned into silence, breaks into wild applause. I can barely hear the buzzer that indicates that my three minutes are up. Caesar thanks me and I go back to my seat, my dress now feeling lighter than air.

As I pass Peeta, who's headed for his interview, he doesn't meet my eyes. I take my seat carefully, but aside from the puffs of smoke here and there, I seem unharmed, so I turn my attention to him.

Caesar and Peeta have been a natural team since they first appeared together a year ago. Their easy give-and-take, comic timing, and ability to segue into heart-wrenching moments, like Peeta's confession of love for me, have made them a huge success with the audience. They effortlessly open with a few jokes about fires and feathers and overcooking poultry. But anyone can see that Peeta is preoccupied, so Caesar directs the conversation right into the subject that's on everyone's minds.

"So, Peeta, what was it like when, after all you've been through, you found out about the Quell?" asks Caesar.

"I was in shock. I mean, one minute I'm seeing Katniss looking so beautiful in all these wedding gowns, and the next…" Peeta trails off.

"You realized there was never going to be a wedding?" asks Caesar gently.

Peeta pauses for a long moment, as if deciding something. He looks out at the spellbound audience, then at the floor, then finally up at Caesar. "Caesar, do you think all our friends here can keep a secret?"

An uncomfortable laugh emanates from the audience. What can he mean? Keep a secret from who? Our whole world is watching. "I feel quite certain of it," says Caesar.

"We're already married," says Peeta quietly. The crowd reacts in astonishment, and I have to bury my face in the folds of my skirt so they can't see my confusion. Where on earth is he going with this?

"But…how can that be?" asks Caesar.

"Oh, it's not an official marriage. We didn't go to the Justice Building or anything. But we have this marriage ritual in District Twelve. I don't know what it's like in the other districts. But there's this thing we do," says Peeta, and he briefly describes the toasting.

"Were your families there?" asks Caesar.

"No, we didn't tell anyone. Not even Haymitch. And Katniss' mother would never have approved. But you see, we knew if we were married in the Capitol, there wouldn't be a toasting. And neither of us really wanted to wait any longer. So one day, we just did it," Peeta says. "And to us, we're more married than any piece of paper or big party could make us."

"So this was before the Quell?" says Caesar.

"Of course before the Quell. I'm sure we'd never have done it after we knew," says Peeta, starting to get upset. "But who could've seen it coming? No one. We went through the Games, we were victors, everyone seemed so thrilled to see us together, and then out of nowhere—I mean, how could we anticipate a thing like that?"

"You couldn't, Peeta." Caesar puts an arm around his shoulders. "As you say, no one could've. But I have to confess, I'm glad you two had at least a few months of happiness together."

Enormous applause. As if encouraged, I look up from my feathers and let the audience see my tragic smile of thanks. The residual smoke from the feathers has made my eyes teary, which adds a very nice touch.

"I'm not glad," says Peeta. "I wish we had waited until the whole thing was done officially."

This takes even Caesar aback. "Surely even a brief time is better than no time?"

"Maybe I'd think that, too, Caesar," says Peeta bitterly, "if it weren't for the baby."

There. He's done it again, pulling everyone and me up short. Dropped a bomb that wipes out the efforts of every tribute who came before him. Well, maybe not. Maybe this year he has only lit the fuse on a bomb that the victors themselves have been building. Hoping someone would be able to detonate it. Perhaps thinking it would be me in my bridal gown. And as the bomb explodes, it sends accusations of injustice and barbarism and cruelty flying out in every direction. Even the most Capitol-loving, Games-hungry, bloodthirsty person out there can't ignore, at least for a moment, how horrific the whole thing is. Yet, what is so spectacular about this accomplishment, isn't the reaction, it's that not once did Peeta have to even mention or question the authenticity of the Capitol or Snow, or complain about the Games; he only spoke of love.

The audience can't absorb the news right away. It has to strike them and sink in and be confirmed by other voices before they begin to sound like a herd of wounded animals, moaning, shrieking, calling for help. And me? I know my face is projected in a tight close-up on the screen, but I don't make any effort to hide it. Because for a moment, even I am working through what Peeta has said. Isn't it the thing I dreaded most about the wedding, about the future—the loss of my children to the Games? The same reason I withdrew from him last night. And it could be true now, couldn't it? If I hadn't spent my life building up layers of defenses until I recoil at even the suggestion of marriage or a family? It seems almost unfair. For me to be crippled like this, to fear love, or physical affection, just because I'm scared to lose everything gained by it in return.

Caesar can't rein in the crowd again, not even when the buzzer sounds. Peeta nods his good-bye and comes back to his seat without any more conversation. I can see Caesar's lips moving, but the place is in total chaos and I can't hear a word. Only the blast of the anthem, cranked up so loud I can feel it vibrating through my bones, lets us know where we stand in the program. I automatically rise and, as I do, I sense Peeta reaching out for me. Tears run down his face as I take his hand. How real are the tears? Is this an acknowledgment that he has been stalked by the same fears that I have? That every victor has? Every parent in every district in Panem?

I look back to the crowd, but the faces of Rue's mother and father swim before my eyes. Their sorrow. Their loss. I turn spontaneously to Chaff and offer my hand. I feel my fingers close around the stump that now completes his arm and hold fast.

And then it happens. Up and down the row, the victors begin to join hands. Some right away, like the morphlings, or Wiress and Beetee. Others unsure but caught up in the demands of those around them, like Brutus and Enorbaria. By the time the anthem plays its final strains, all twenty-four of us stand in one unbroken line in what must be the first public show of unity among the districts since the Dark Days. You can see the realization of this as the screens begin to pop into blackness. It's too late, though. In the confusion they didn't cut us off in time. Everyone has seen.

There's disorder on the stage now, too, as the lights go out and we're left to stumble back into the Training Center. I've lost hold of Chaff, but Peeta guides me into an elevator. Finnick and Johanna try to join us, but a harried Peacekeeper blocks their way and we shoot upward alone.

The moment we step off the elevator, Peeta grips my shoulders. "There isn't much time, so tell me. Is there anything I have to apologize for?"

"Nothing," I say. It was a big leap to take without my okay, but I'm just as glad I didn't know, didn't have time to second-guess him, to let any guilt over Gale detract from how I really feel about what Peeta did. Which is empowered.

Somewhere, very far off, is a place called District 12, where my mother and sister and friends will have to deal with the fallout from this night. Just a brief hovercraft ride away is an arena where, tomorrow, Peeta and I and the other tributes will face our own form of punishment. But even if all of us meet terrible ends, something happened on that stage tonight that can't be undone. We victors staged our own uprising, and maybe, just maybe, the Capitol won't be able to contain this one.

"You look stunning," Peeta says, quietly, a hand musing the feathers on my headdress. "Cinna is amazing with clothing."

"Yes," I breathe, still afraid for my rebellious stylist. "He's done a lot for me."

That's when I notice his hand moves instantly to a chain around his neck. "What's that?"

"Effie gave it to Portia, she put it on me before the interview."

I reach out to retrieve the disk that hangs from the chain around his neck, and find that my mockingjay has been engraved on it. "Is this your token?" I ask.

"Yes. Do you mind that I used your mockingjay? I wanted us to match."

"No, of course I don't mind." I force a smile. The fact that Peeta will show up in the arena wearing a mockingjay is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it should give a boost to the rebels in the districts. On the other, it's hard to imagine President Snow will overlook it, and that will make the job of keeping Peeta alive harder.

We're waiting for the others to return, but when the elevator opens, only Haymitch appears. "It's madness out there. Everyone's been sent home and they've canceled the recap of the interviews on television."

Peeta and I hurry to the window and try to make sense of the commotion far below us on the streets. "What are they saying?" Peeta asks. "Are they asking the president to stop the Games?"

"I don't think they know themselves what to ask. The whole situation is unprecedented. Even the idea of opposing the Capitol's agenda is a source of confusion for the people here," says Haymitch. "But there's no way Snow would cancel the Games. You know that, right?"

I do. Of course, he could never back down now. The only option left to him is to strike back, and strike back hard. "The others went home?" I ask.

"They were ordered to. I don't know how much luck they're having getting through the mob," says Haymitch.

"Then we'll never see Effie again," says Peeta. We didn't see her on the morning of the Games last year. "You'll give her our thanks."

"More than that. Really make it special. It's Effie, after all," I say. "Tell her how appreciative we are and how she was the best escort ever and tell her ... tell her we send our love."

For a while we just stand there in silence, delaying the inevitable. Then Haymitch says it. "I guess this is where we say our good-byes as well."

"Any last words of advice?" Peeta asks.

"Stay alive," Haymitch says gruffly. That's almost an old joke with us now. He gives us each a quick embrace, and I can tell it's all he can stand. "Go to bed. You need your rest."

I know I should say a whole bunch of things to Haymitch, but I can't think of anything he doesn't already know, really, and my throat is so tight I doubt anything would come out, anyway. So, once again, I let Peeta speak for us both. "You take care, Haymitch," he says.

We cross the room, but in the doorway, Haymitch's voice stops us. "Katniss, when you're in the arena," he begins. Then he pauses. He's scowling in a way that makes me sure I've already disappointed him.

"What?" I ask defensively.

"You just remember who the enemy is," Haymitch tells me. "That's all. Now go on. Get out of here."

We walk down the hallway. Peeta wants to stop by his room to shower off the makeup and meet me in a few minutes, but I won't let him. I'm certain that if a door shuts between us, it will lock and I'll have to spend the night without him. Besides, I have a shower in my room. I refuse to let go of his hand.

I know we should sleep. Except I can't help but think this is my last night with Peeta. Alone, to myself. I won't ever have Peeta like this again. The arena will be just like the last, we will have no moment of peace or privacy because of the cameras and only one of us will rise out of the aftermath victorious. I only have this one last handful of hours. So when Peeta returns from the shower, smelling of soups and his hair damp, I pull him to bed and waste no time. What do I tell him? What does he want to hear? Should I remind him of this, or does he know? Is that why he keeps kissing me back, just as heatedly?

When he finally manages to get me out of my mockingjay dress, I stop him. I'm on my knees at the edge of the bed and he stands level-of-face in front of me, one of my hands stalling him, flat against his bare chest. He stares down at me, patient. I still don't know what to say to him.

Instead, I give up the attempt, kiss him with recklessness. We fall into the bed, and the barriers quickly fall, the hunger and fire all consuming. Peeta doesn't move to try anything I stopped the other night, stays well within his boundaries like a trained dog. It is enough to make me feel guilty, because I can see him wanting it, in the back of his eyes. I want it, too, physically, but mentally all those brick walls I built, cemented with my beliefs, they stand strong.

That is, they were until a moments pause between our kisses.

Peeta still has his undershorts on and one of my hands is pressed against the bulge, shifting, rubbing. Peeta closes his eyes, looks so beautiful with his cheeks flushed, lips swollen, eyelashes laying golden against cheekbones. And he says sweet things to me, mostly inhales with gasps of pleasure, but sometimes exhales in one harsh rush. I say nothing, just observe, wonder about this power I have over him.

And I think of how I will miss him. When he lives on, heartbroken, marching through the aftermath of these Hunger Games and I will be lying cold in a coffin. I know he won't ever forget me, can't ever forget this moment... then I think, for no apparent reason, of Finnick. A young, strong, beautiful tribute, just like Peeta is. My mind goes to the rumors about such tributes. The way they are turned to the Capitol citizens who pay the best price... then to the thought of how Peeta and I leaned on each other to save one another from this... but, finally, horrifyingly, I realize if I'm gone, Snow wouldn't hesitate.

I know I can't prevent it, can't change my mind about Peeta and only Peeta getting out of these Games alive. There is nothing I can do to stop the inevitable. I feel awful, sick to my stomach at the thought of someone else, let alone a Capitolite, touching Peeta the way I have, kissing him, his neck. No. There is nothing... nothing, except to take away some of the fire's burn. I want him first, all of him, I realize. I can't let them take that from me, and I want him to think of me, every time he's with those others.

Selfish to think it, but true enough to overthrow my walls of beliefs, if anything, I set forth on this new want without pause. Peeta notices almost instantly something is different, because the careful amount of space between our hips is gone, my stomach laying against his and he draws back to examine my face. I take this moment to speak, swallowing, hard-pressed to find the right words.

"You're mine," I say, _and I am yours_. Then one of my hands wiggle the undershorts to his knees, I stop whatever he's going to reply with by using my lips, and he kicks them off the bed.

"I trust you," Peeta whispers into the skin of my neck. A shudder works it way down my spine, and his hands, that were in my hair, slide downward, adjust the angle of my hips, kisses drop to the top of my breasts, one gentle movement after another, closer, closer... and one thrust later I gasp, twisting against Peeta, by the pain it causes.

"I'll stop," Peeta says, having frozen at the entrance. "If it hurts to–"

"No." I moved against him, now, when he wouldn't and as I did, my pain was transforming itself, becoming a savory, burning ache. Good and bad, the way a scolding bath soothes and sears at the same time. "No," I say and he listens.

Rapidly both our wants and tempos grew, I forgot to think of anything else, forgot the reason, it just felt good, burning, aching, throbbing; I felt as though my pleasure would never stop, that it would ebb and flow and then wash over me once more. At last he cries out, and my own muffled cry answers his as my pleasure mingles with the pain.

Our bodies are drenched in sweat, and Peeta slips out, but I kiss him, before anything else can be said. While the ache is still pounding inside of me, and he is still breathless. Before we have to consider anything, the guilt, the awful reason I even began to do it... there is that sealing kiss, a silent, quick, long one with no tongue. An old familiar kiss.

There is nothing more I want to do than lay here, but I feel more than sensual warmth inside me and on my thighs. I feel gross, and since he's already had his shower, I get mine in peace, washing away the minimal blood that thankfully spared the bed sheets. The water feels nice, but I realize Peeta's arms feel nicer, so it's a short one.

Do we sleep? I don't know. We spend the rest of the night holding each other, in some halfway land between dreams and waking and endorphins. Not talking. Both afraid to disturb the other in the hope that we'll be able to store up a few precious minutes of rest with the time that is left.

It's a little before dawn when Peeta's thumb rubs, caresses, a touch nondepreciating against the downy soft skin at the tip of my hip bone. He says only this, "I love you." Nose tracing down the edge of my jaw, underneath my ear, stopping at the point where my braid conjoins with my scalp, inhaling the scent of shampoo.

I say nothing.

Cinna and Portia arrive with the dawn, and I know Peeta will have to go. Tributes enter the arena alone. He gives me a light kiss. "See you soon," he says.

"See you soon," I answer.

Cinna, who will help dress me for the Games, accompanies me to the roof. I'm about to mount the ladder to the hovercraft when I remember. "I didn't say good-bye to Portia."

"I'll tell her," says Cinna.

The electric current freezes me in place on the ladder until the doctor injects the tracker into my left forearm. Now they will always be able to locate me in the arena. The hovercraft takes off, and I look out the windows until they black out. Cinna keeps pressing me to eat and, when that fails, to drink. I manage to keep sipping water, thinking of the days of dehydration that almost killed me last year. Thinking of how I will need my strength to keep Peeta alive.

When we reach the Launch Room at the arena, Cinna re-braids my hair down my back and helps me dress over simple undergarments. This year's tribute outfit is a thick, tight long sleeve turtleneck shirt, made of wool and, after Cinna's input, spandex. The pants are no different from the shirt; black, tight, and thick. A belt, which is just simple enough to tuck a knife under, added and then my shoes, black also, reaching to nearly mid-shin, and made mostly of a rubber texture.

"What do you think?" I ask, holding the fabric out for Cinna to examine.

He frowns as he rubs the thick stuff between his fingers. "I don't know. It will offer in the way of protection from cold or water. But the wool would only absorb water, and it could get rather heavy."

Cinna seems more interested in my boots though, then anything else. He examines them as I pull on the clothes, wincing slightly, at the soreness I feel in my center. "Look," Cinna says, and I move to see what he's pointing out. "See these grooves in the soles?" I nod. "They have a grip, that may mean climbing. Mountains possibly."

I could just picture the arena now. A mountainous, cliff infected place with fierce waterfalls and down traveling streams, dovetailing Gamemaker induced heavy rain and possible snowfalls, and freezing winds.

"Oh, I almost forgot this." Cinna takes my gold mockingjay pin from his pocket and fixes it to the outfit.

"My dress was fantastic last night," I say. Fantastic and reckless. But Cinna must know that.

"I thought you might like it," he says with a tight smile.

There is a knock at the door. Confused, Cinna answers and a Peacekeeper stands there in the hall. In his hands is a fanny-pack, black, zipped tightly closed. "For the tribute."

Cinna takes it. "What is this about?"

"A part of the outfits, passed out only minutes beforehand, as orders befit. It is not to be opened until the gong has gone off." The Peacekeeper motions for me to get on the metal plate, just as the voice overhead announces the same thing, no doubt to all the other confused victors who've had a strange knock on their doors.

The man still hasn't left, even as Cinna walks me over to the circular metal plate and attaches the fanny-pack about my waist. "Remember, girl on fire," he says, quietly. "I'm still betting on you." He kisses my forehead and steps back as the glass cylinder slides down around me.

"Thank you," I say, although he probably can't hear me.

I lift my chin, holding my head high the way he always tells me to, and wait for the plate to rise. But it doesn't. And it still doesn't. I look at Cinna, raising my eyebrows for an explanation. He just gives his head a slight shake, as perplexed as I am.

I look to the blank faced Peacekeeper. Why are they delaying this?

Suddenly the door behind them bursts open and two more Peacekeepers spring into the room. Two pin Cinna's arms behind him and cuff him while the third hits him in the temple with such force he's knocked to his knees. But they keep hitting him with metal-studded gloves, opening gashes on his face and body. I'm screaming my head off, banging on the unyielding glass, trying to reach him. The Peacekeepers ignore me completely as they drag Cinna's limp body from the room. All that's left are the smears of blood on the floor.

Sickened and terrified, I feel the plate begin to rise. I'm still leaning against the glass when an eerie, cool wisp of air catches my hair and I force myself to straighten up. Just in time, too, because the glass is retreating and I'm standing free in the arena. Something seems to be wrong with my vision. Everything is dark, drenched in black. I squint down at my feet and see nothing, not my metal plate, not the climbing boots. Slowly I raise my eyes and realize, there's nothing actually wrong with my sight, it's the arena. Pitch black, squelched and deprived of anything warm, of color, and even the oxygen tastes thin.

I can only form one clear thought.

This is no place for a girl on fire.


	10. Chapter Ten

**_Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended._**

_A/N: I can not believe all the reviews I'm getting! Thank you, so, so much. I love every one of them. Any confusion on the arena don't hesitate to PM and ask. Thanks for reading, sorry for typos. Enjoy. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Ten<p>

"Ladies and Gentlemen, let the Seventy-fifth Hunger Game begin!" The voice of Claudius Templesmith, the Hunger Game announcer, hammers against my ears. Coming from above, from no where, lost in the blackness sprawling out before me.

I have less than a minute to get my bearings, though. Then the gong will sound and the tributes will be free to move off their metal plates. But move where? I can't think straight. The image of Cinna beaten and bloody, consumes me. Where is he now? What are they doing to him? Torturing him? Killing him? Turning him into an Avox? Obviously his assault was staged to unhinge me, the same way Darius' presence in my quarters was meant to. And it _has _unhinged me. All I want to do is collapse on my plate.

I have to be strong, I know. After what I just witnessed, it only proves that I have to be. I owe Cinna, who risked everything by undermining President Snow and turning my bridal silk into mockingjay plumage. And I owe it to the rebels who, emboldened by Cinna's example, might be fighting to bring down the Capitol at this very moment. My refusal to play the Games on the Capitol's terms is to be my last act of rebellion. So I grit my teeth, straighten my spine and will myself to be a player.

_Where are you? _I can still make no sense of my surroundings. _Where are you?_

I demand an answer of myself and slowly the world around me comes into focus. Black. Cold musty air. Smells of moss and clay. To my left I can hear shifting and know a tribute stands there... then I pick up more. A soft dripping sound somewhere far overhead. The tap of a victor's impatient foot against metal. Another, familiar voice, muttering intelligently and uncertainly to themselves. It's as if the nothingness around me is full of life, just hidden from sight.

My hunter's instincts and abilities are hyped, making up for the lack of vision. But even so, I'm bewildered. How are we suppose to fight like this? Groping around in the dark? I do not even know where the cornucopia is. I can only assume it's dead ahead of me. Would the supplies be scattered around us, like last year, or will they be inside it awaiting for us to be drawn into the trap? I know I must go there, first, if not to Peeta. Except how? How do I find a weapon and Peeta both, in complete darkness?

From what I hear and smell and taste I know we must be somewhere underground. And from what information Cinna provided about my clothing I assume it is to be a damp, frigid cave somewhere deep within a mountain or near enough to that not to matter. My hands are still trembling, my head clammy. It's impossible for anyone to shake off something like what I've just seen so quickly. I lift a hand up to my face, not five inches away. But as I suspected, I can't see even this. My eyes are useless, I conclude, just in time for the gong to sound.

There is the scuttle of people's feet. Faint voices, that echo far and farther overhead. The feeling of suffocation in here, pushing around me, is drawn from at the observation; that the ceiling above us domes high, causing sounds to bounce. Slowly, blindly, I stumble off my platform, head swiveling at every tiny noise.

_What am I to do?_ I think, breathing deeply, trying to stay calm. There is the noise of fighting now. Weak struggles. Metal brushing against metal, rolling objects across the ground, somewhere in the middle of it all. The cornucopia? But it's so hard to pin-point noise when distorted by echoing that ears are just as useless as eyes.

What am I to do?

I feel someone blitz passed me; the rush of chilling air they bring with them causing me to flinch, and blink and take on a stance as close to hand-to-hand combat as I can manage. Except no one jumps at me, they are gone. Did I imagine it?

I take a few steps forward. There is definitely fighting. I can hear the clash of metal, the cries of those dying, bodies hitting the ground. But most of all I hear frantic running feet, spreading out in all directions. In front of me my hands reach out, I am hoping for something to grab onto. If I touched and found a tribute, then I would kill them to the best of my ability. Or maybe I am hoping to stumble right up to the cornucopia, find a bow, use it... in the dark?

That plan misses and fails when my foot catches on something, a sudden sharp upping in the floor's level, and I fall, barely having any time to break the blow with my hands. Immediately I'm back up, climbing over this obstacle. The sounds of the fight increase, and I'm nearing it. How are they fighting in the dark? And underneath that, I feel short of breath, scared suddenly if Peeta is already gone. If he'd jumped blindly right into the direction of belligerent without caution, hoping to find me.

I'm disoriented not only by this unexpected twist, but Cinna, throbbing silently in the back of my mind. Grieving for him, remembering those last few seconds, his last words... then I fall again, more harshly, right over another sharp upping on the floor. This time, so close to the fighting (or so it seems, because of how unbearably loud the sounds begin to echo and grow) I crawl. Hands running along the jagged, rock floor, feeling cracks and uneven footings. Until my fingers come across a puddle of warm liquid, retreating almost at once, sickened, cringing on the inside.

I stand, feel dizzy by the blind movement for an another estranging second, then I retreat a few steps, away from the fighting. I wouldn't throw myself into it blindly. Couldn't make sense of it – "Hmph."

A person slams into my shoulders, hands instinctively flying out to grasp them by the shirt, but still, we fall, heavily against the cold hard ground. My knees are throbbing by the amount of times I've fallen and they give a soft huff of pain. I feel their skinny body struggle to untangle from mine, the warm hand that momentarily presses into forearm. "Your pack, Katniss," Cecelia whispers to me, and then she's gone, disappearing into the darkness.

My pack? Sure enough when I reach down to my waist I find the peculiar fanny-pack that's right where Cinna put it, given to me from the Peacekeeper that ambushed him. My head it swimming momentarily, unable to understand, why Cecelia would remind me, move passed me so quickly without a struggle. I unzip it and extract the one, small object from inside.

They feel just like regular sun glasses, but I remember. I remember what Rue told me. And I put them on within the breath, blink, and I can _see_.

There is a slight green tint to everything, but I still can see other colors, too. Almost normal, much better than in the dark. Except now I can see the arena, and my heart sinks inside my chest. We are in a cave of some sort, but you can tell by how angular and domed the ceiling is overhead that this is no natural one. The walls are almost arched outwards, stretching like a cat's back, and the whole cornucopia set up is big enough to rival a gymnasium... and then there are the side passageways. Some small, slender, large, wide, sharp.. one that is as short as my kneecaps, and they spread out in every direction. That's it then. A tunnel of mazes and darkness. Treacherous without glasses.

The cornucopia sits on an elevated flat trek of rock, about as tall as I am when standing at the level of the metal plates. I'm still on the second step out of the four, on which it sits and where the fight is occurring.

I leap at the chance, when Finnick, odd and handsome looking in the night vision glasses and black get-up, throws Gloss down the elated platform and Brutus gets taken down in his flail to gain composure. Odair is busy with Enorbaria, trident against knife, and I reach the cornucopia. _Bow and arrow._ That's what I need. It's my survival from it all. I still can't find Peeta. I can see no one else converging from my side of the Cornucopia, although the gold neck blocks a good portion of my view.

I don't let the thought of adversaries slow me down. The only way to get rid of them is with a weapon. I'm not in any way, shape or form, about to throw myself into a fist fight. That one run in I had with Cecelia helps me know that. I wouldn't have been able to hurt her, not with my hands, not so personally. If I _have_ to, yes. With other options? Absolutely not.

Actions now, observations later. I'm thinking like a Career, I have to shake feelings and get my hands on a weapon. Last year, the supplies were spread out quite a distance around the cornucopia, with the most valuable closest to the horn. But this year, the booty seems to be piled at the twenty-foot-high mouth, considering that would ruin the points of the elevation. My eyes instantly home in on a golden bow just in arm's reach and I yank it free.

Hunter's instinct; there's someone hovering behind me. I've trained my mind to notice things like the soft scoff of shoes and, possibly, even to pick up on the change of air flow. I pull an arrow from the sheath that's still wedged in the pile and arm my bow, turning on the balls of my feet.

Finnick, huffing, stands a few yards away, with a trident poised to attack. A net dangles from his other hand. He's smiling a little, but the muscles in his upper body are rigid in anticipation. "You like the arena?" he says.

"You look like you do," I say, indicating with my chin to the Careers, struggling to right themselves all the way at the bottom, fighting off the few victors down there. "Must have played king of the hill a lot as kid, huh?"

"Not particularly." He smiles. "They must have built this place especially for you."

That takes a moment to sink in, and suddenly, it seems like it, anyway, with the underground scenery, the rocks and caves and darkness. You would think someone from the coal mining district would have an advantage here, being in their element, but that would be wrong. Mining isn't available to children, only to those beyond the Hunger Games' reach. And I hate the mines.

For a moment we're frozen, sizing each other up, our weapons, our skill. Then Finnick suddenly grins. "Lucky thing we're allies. Right?"

Sensing a trap, I'm about to let my arrow fly, hoping it finds his heart before the trident impales me, when he shifts his hand and something on his wrist catches my attention. A solid-gold bangle patterned with flames. The same one I remember on Haymitch's wrist the morning I began training. I briefly consider that Finnick could have stolen it to trick me, but somehow I know this isn't the case. Haymitch gave it to him. As a signal to me. An order, really. To trust Finnick. I can hear other footsteps approaching. I must decide at once.

"Right!" I snap, because even though Haymitch is my mentor and trying to keep me alive, this angers me. Why didn't he tell me he'd made this arrangement before? Probably because Peeta and I had ruled out allies. Now Haymitch has chosen one on his own.

"Duck!" Finnick commands in such a powerful voice, so different from his usual seductive purr, that I do. His trident goes whizzing over my head and there's a sickening sound of impact as it finds its target. The man from District 5, the drunk who threw up on the sword-fighting floor, sinks to his knees as Finnick frees the trident from his chest. "Don't trust One and Two," Finnick says.

There's no time to question this. I work the sheath of arrows free. "Each take one side?" I say.

He nods, and I dart around the pile. One step down, approximately twenty yards off, Enorbaria and Gloss are approaching. Either they're slow climbers or the fall Finnick delivered has stunted them. Sometimes it's not good to consider too many scenarios. But now they're here, facing me head on and I hear Finnick shout, "Anything useful?"

I quickly scan the pile on my side and find maces, swords, bows and arrows, tridents, knives, spears, axes, metallic objects I have no name for ... and nothing else. "Weapons!" I call back. "Nothing but weapons!"

"Same here," he confirms. "Grab what you want and let's go!"

I shoot an arrow at Enorbaria, who's gotten in too close for comfort, but she's expecting it and dives to the side before it can find its mark. Gloss isn't quite as swift, and I sink an arrow into his calf as he plunges behind the ledge of the third step. I sling an extra bow and a second sheath of arrows over my body, slide two long knives and an awl into my belt, and meet up with Finnick at the front of the pile. "Do something about that, would you?" he says.

I see Brutus barreling toward us, blood from the fall on his arms. His belt is undone and he has it stretched between his hands as a kind of shield. I shoot at him and he manages to block the arrow with his belt before it can skewer his liver. Where it punctures the belt, a purple liquid spews forth, coating his face. As I reload, Brutus flattens on the ground, rolls the few feet to the side, and submerges over the side of the elevated rocks, tumbling down the steps. "Let's clear out," I say to Finnick.

This last altercation has given Phenobarbital and Gloss time to reach the Cornucopia. Brutus is within shooting distance and somewhere, certainly, Cashmere is nearby, too. These four classic Careers will no doubt have a prior alliance. If I had only my own safety to consider, I might be willing to take them on with Finnick by my side. But it's Peeta I'm thinking about. I spot him now, fighting. And I raise my bow without thought, a surge of panic in my stomach, as the man from District 8 tries to wrap an arm around Peeta's neck.

He drops dead, arrow buried into his temple. I do not even think about Woof, the district partner to the woman who might have just saved my life, as I clamor down the steps of the cornucopia and reach Peeta's side. "Are you okay?"

Finnick follows me over. "Give him one of your knifes," he says, eyes uneasy on the cornucopia. "We won't be able to get him any weapons, now."

That's true enough. The cornucopia is a devastatingly easy place to defend, rather than to overcome. As Finnick and I have just proven. The four Careers have formed a system already, and going back is not a choice. I take a knife off my belt and hold it hilt-out toward Peeta. He takes it, and I see a bruise forming on his jaw and his knuckles are ruffled. I should have shot Woof sooner, better yet, I should have looked for Peeta fist, knew about the glasses, at the very least. I shake my head, to clear it. That doesn't matter now.

"Nice to see you again," Peeta says. He ducks to place a quick kiss on my cheek.

"Like wise," I retort. "We've got allies."

"I noticed." Peeta spares Finnick a glance, they share a nod. "Remind me, did we make deals with anyone else?"

"Only Mags, I think." I nod toward the old woman waveringly making her way toward us, avoiding the trips and cracks of the floor.

"Well, I can't leave Mags behind," says Finnick. "She's one of the few people who actually likes me."

"I've got no problem with Mags," I say.

"Katniss wanted her on the first day," says Peeta.

"Katniss has remarkably good judgment," says Finnick. With one hand he reaches for the older woman and steadies her easily atop the outcrop we stand on, like she weighs no more than a puppy.

"Look," Peeta says, abruptly. "Some of them still haven't figured it out." And he's right. It's nice to know I wasn't the only one in this arena to go blundering about without a clue, for all of Panem to watch and laugh over. Except, that pleasure only lasts a moment, when I realize the exclusive people who haven't clued into the pack are the morphlings, who are on their hands and knees, confused, unseeing eyes flickering around crazily, and the female from nine. I feel sad for them, pity them and the sudden, dark death ahead.

Then I see Beetee, creeping, or attempting it at least, along the side of the steps. His intent on the cornucopia. I almost ask Finnick to wait, to get Beetee and Wiress and take them with us, but Beetee's too far over and I can't even see Wiress. For all I know, Finnick would kill them as quickly as he did the tribute from 5, so instead I suggest we move on.

I hand Peeta a bow, a sheath of arrows, this time to hold and keep the rest for myself. But Mags tugs on my sleeve and babbles on until I've given the awl to her. Pleased, she clamps the handle between her gums and reaches her arms up to Finnick. He tosses his net over his shoulder, hoists Mags on top of it, grips his tridents in his free hand, and we agree to move out.

And that turns out to be a dilemma. The only way away from this dome-like room is through a side tunnel, but which one is the best to take? What other hidden dangers lace through these caves? Which one had all the other tributes fled? Finally, Mags points us toward a wider, less suffocating one near our left. No one questions her. She's the only one who's been brave enough to make a decision.

Where the cave opens, rocks begin to rise sharply. Not large, but random juts of boulders rising throughout the cave, floor to ceiling, all sharpened to lethal points. Most of the moss growing around us is unfamiliar, vines twisting along the walls behind them. The atmosphere is very wet, musty, and random pools of water or drips along the ceilings can be seen. What the cave is made of is nothing like the mines in District 12 though, it's a smooth, when not chipped or sharpened, black stone, like ebony, but blacker. The kind of thing that obscures and lends itself to the dark, leaving the tributes as blind-sided as the Gamemakers wanted us to be.

I can't help but be thankful for the thick black fabric of my sweater, but the dampness and chill has already begun to cling to me, seep into my joints and bones, causing stiffness. And the night vision glasses are soon enlisted at the top of my survival list. Without glasses, it means death. A thin, tight rope for us to walk on, something just as Snow would do.

Peeta takes the lead, one hand constantly gliding along the wall on our right. I make Finnick go second because even though he's the most powerful, he's got his hands full with Mags. Besides, while he's a whiz with that trident, it's a weapon less suited to the close compacts of a cave than my arrows. The path quickly begins to grow steeper, and though we can see fairly far with the glasses, it always seems to dip one way, or another, never showing an end.

It doesn't take long, between the sparse oxygen and incline, to become short of breath. Peeta and I have been training intensely, though, and Finnick's such an amazing physical specimen that even with Mags over his shoulder, we climb rapidly for about a mile before he requests a rest. And then I think it's more for Mags' sake than his own.

Noise still echoes from behind us. Shouts, faint screams, even dual rasps of the weapons. And each time someone cries out, a sinking feeling takes hold of me. Well, what did I think? That the victors' chain of locked hands last night would result in some sort of universal truce in the arena? No, I never believed that. But I guess I had hoped people might show some ... what? Restraint? Reluctance, at least. Before they jumped right into massacre mode. _And you all knew each other,_ I think. _You acted like friends._

I have only one real friend in here. And he isn't from District 4. I let a small drip of water on the wall distract me while I come to a decision. Despite the bangle, I should just get it over with and shoot Finnick. There's really no future in this alliance. And he's too dangerous to let go. Now, when we have this tentative trust, may be my only chance to kill him. I could easily shoot him in the back as we walk. It's despicable, of course, but will it be any more despicable if I wait? Know him better? Owe him more?

No, this is the time. I take one last look at Peeta, blood on his sleeves from Woof, to harden my resolve, and then slide an arrow discreetly into my bow. But when I move to raise it, I find Finnick's kept pace with my thoughts. As if he knows what I have been thinking and how it will have affected me. He has one of his tridents raised in a casually defensive position. "What do you think is going on back there, Katniss? Have they all joined hands? Taken a vow of nonviolence? Tossed the weapons to the floor in defiance of the Capitol?" Finnick asks.

"No," I say.

"No," Finnick repeats. "Because whatever happened in the past is in the past. And no one in this arena was a victor by chance." He eyes Peeta for a moment. "Except maybe Peeta."

Finnick knows then what Haymitch and I know. About Peeta. Being truly, deep-down better than the rest of us. Finnick took out that tribute from 5 without blinking an eye. And how long did I take to turn deadly? I shot to kill when I targeted Enorbaria and Gloss and Brutus. Peeta would at least have attempted negotiations first. Seen if some wider alliance was possible. But to what end? Finnick's right. I'm right. The people in this arena weren't crowned for their compassion.

I hold his gaze, weighing his speed against my own. The time it will take to send an arrow through his brain versus the time his trident will reach my body. I can see him, waiting for me to make the first move. Calculating if he should block first or go directly for an attack. I can feel we've both about worked it out when Peeta steps deliberately between us. "So what do you think of these glasses?" he asks.

_Move, you idiot,_ I think. But he remains planted firmly between us.

"Honestly, I'm surprised they gave us them," I answer, voice rough.

"Then let's keep moving. Maybe we can find a place with light," he says. So far there's been no sign of anything to suggest that, and I severely doubt that the Gamemakers would be so generous, but when Peeta hopes for something, there's no harm in at least attempting. And aside the small pools the size of my hands, that isn't nearly enough for four people, there seems to be no obvious freshwater stream or pond.

"And water," I say, dropping my bow all the way to the ground. I think of my first arena, nearly dying of dehydration. "There has to be a source around here somewhere."

"Better find it soon," says Finnick. "We need to be undercover when the others come hunting us tonight."

We. Us. Hunting. All right, maybe killing Finnick would be a little premature. He's been helpful so far. He does have Haymitch's stamp of approval. And who knows what the night will hold? If worse comes to worst, I can always kill him in his sleep. So I let the moment pass. And so does Finnick.

The absence of a substantial supply of water intensifies my thirst. I keep a sharp eye out as we continue our trek upward, but with no luck. After a certain point, other tunnels begin to branch out at the sides of the main one we chose. Peeta seems determined to continue along this one only. And I don't blame him, some of those tunnels make me uneasy, because even with the glasses they seem pitch dark, or dangerous, something lingering in there, waiting for prey to come unsuspectingly stumbling in...

After about another mile, I can see what looks to be the end. "Maybe we could try a smaller tunnel next time, that goes further down. Find an underground river or something." But there is no other tunnel waiting for us at the end of this one. I know this before anyone else, even though I am farthest from the top. At first I think it's just the shadows playing with my eyes. Except, it seems more ominous than that. The trek we're on ends at a rounded bud, that seems to be some sort of room. But the closer we get a circle of pure and bleak darkness stands out from the rest of the floor.

My warning cry is just reaching my lips when Peeta takes another step, hand falling away from the wall, a gasp escaping him, as his foot falls past the floor, down into the pit. There's a sharp spurting sound, some of the rocks near his other leg falling away from underneath him. For an instant, Peeta flails, back paddling, but it's already too late. Never so steady with his artificial leg than he was with his real one, he slips right over the edge of the dark. Into an endlessly huge crater craved out of the floor.

I rush over to him, dropping weapons, throwing the shocked and unmoving Finnick out of my way. But still, I am too late. "Peeta?" There's a faint echo from below, a muffled noise. Random scrapping sounds against unseen walls. The rocks and floor I push over the edge, falling... falling, deeper and deeper into nothingness. I call his name again, but there's no response.

"Peeta!" I scream now, conscious of it echoing around us, loud enough to cause Finnick to wince at my side. It fades soon after, and I hold my breath, waiting. Hoping that in moments Peeta will call back, unharmed, safely landed somewhere invisible below.

Instead, I hear only silence.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**_Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended._**

_A/N: So, I suggest you read this afterwards but do what you like I just want to explain my actions here for those who care: this is where I completely diverge it from Catching Fire. The past changes in the last few chapters have led up to Katniss' sudden change here in this one, on whether or not to let Finnick save Peeta and have her initially owe him like she did in the original canon. This time her feelings are stronger and it's not out right put, but for Finnick to save Peeta (as he is to Katniss now) would be owing him more. Too much, because we all know she loves him. But of course she doesn't. And he doesn't. And Panem thinks so. But otherwise, thanks for reading, sorry for typos. Please review. Any questions feel free to PM me. Enjoy. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Eleven<p>

Arms shaking and knees quaking, I rise unsteadily to my feet. Both of my hands move to rake sharply over my scalp, combing through my hair. A tightness, an unfamiliar ball of panic, builds in my chest. And I can't... there isn't... the hole, the directly vertical tunnel falling down right in front of me is suddenly too terrifying to look down.. and I back away.

Flashes of an old nightmare, of my father, infiltrate my mind. The walls around me transform, turn to replicate the true mines of District 12. Then I feel it, I remember, what this tightness means._Grief, despair, a choking sorrow._

Images of Peeta swirl into thought, the arena and the Games falling away momentarily, only the way he speaks echoes in my ears. His face overtakes my vision; laughing, smiling, joking... then breathing heavily, flushed, kind eyes open to me in every possible way. A sharp twist, like white-hot metal in my heart jerks me back to the present, brings me sputtering to the surface of the panic.

Finnick is talking to me. "Katniss," he says. "Katniss, look at me! Listen to me!"

He has a hold of my shoulders, tries to shake me and I burst, before listening to anything he has to say, "I have to go down there after him."

"No," Finnick says, and I can see a shadow pass over his expression. There is panic and pity in his beautiful eyes, but that is below my attention and I brush him aside, move toward the tunnel with purpose.

I walk around it. Examine it at every angle. I don't know what I'm looking for. A point of entrance? The chance of a slightly less steep side of it to slide down? Foot and hand holds? Maybe Peeta isn't really that far away, maybe he's just some forty feet down, but hit his head, knocked himself out, is unable to answer my calls. I've decided to feel the sides of the tunnel, but just as I crouch closer to the hole two hands wrap around my arms and pull me around and against a nearby wall.

"He's dead, Katniss," Finnick says, clearly upset. "Leave him. We have to move, find somewhere to camp. These are the Hunger Games–"

"I'm not leaving Peeta!" I say, struggling against his hold.

"He's gone, there's nothing we can do. I'm sorry."

"I didn't hear any cannon shot, did you?" I snarl.

Slowly I see his desperate expression wan, transform before my eyes, and compose itself quickly. "Let _me _get him," Finnick says.

Suspicion flickers up inside me. Could this all just be a ruse? For Finnick to win my trust and then go down there and assure Peeta's death? "I can," I insist.

But Finnick releases me, drops all his weapons to the ground. "Better not exert yourself. Not in your condition," he says, and reaches down and pats my abdomen.

_Oh, right. I'm supposed to be pregnant, _I think. _Thanks to Peeta. _And my heart sinks. "No," I say. "I have to do it. "There is no way to know what's happening below. And I know if Finnick is down there with him, risking everything, putting all his efforts out there to save Peeta then I would owe him. Owe him far too much.

Finnick takes a breath, like he's about to argue, but Mags distracts us both, and though I don't understand what she says I follow to where her finger's pointing. "The vines," Finnick says, repeating what Mags has said. "That's perfect."

They help me rip them from the wall and then tie them into tight knots that I don't really know well. But I test them and they are strong, stronger than anything I've ever tied. Finnick tests it a second time, but finally relents to let me go down instead of him. Asks me one more time if he can do it, but I refuse. "I don't know how far it goes," Finnick warns me, as Mags ties the length of rubbery, thick vine around my waist. "If you run out of rope, call to me and I'll pull you back up. We'll find some more."

I nod. I realize that this is dangerous, to put myself into Finnick's hands, literally dangling from the end of a rope. But there is nothing else I can do, other than to heedlessly leap down the edge of the crater and risk my whole life in an unknown approach to this situation. Yes. There is nothing else I can do but trust into my District 4 allies. Of which, I will now owe.

I find comfort in the thought that it's me putting forth all the effort, rather than Finnick, and with that, I approach the hole. Finnick lowers me by hand into the ditch, and then when I'm a few inches too far to reach he winds the some thirty-to-forty feet of vine around his wrist, up his arm, and his knuckles go white with grip. "Slow," I say and he nods.

I try to look over my shoulder, hands gripping the vine in front of my torso tightly, but I feel the glasses sliding down the bridge of my nose and I hurriedly look back upward. Into Finnick's strained face. Just as lento as I told him, he lowers me, inch by inch, and my feet against the side of the wall walk with each drop. Around me it's dark, the walls smooth, no hand holds anywhere. The space can't be more than eight feet across and there is no telling how deep, since I can neither look nor see very well if I do.

Whenever I start to feel suffocated or paralyzed with fear because of the walls hugging around me I think of Peeta, and find some piece of courage inside me, that I couldn't find before.

The further down I go a faint, far off sound of rushing water hits my ears, growing steadily. Finnick's face becomes a little hazy in my glass' view, more and more, until it's almost not there. I conclude this means that even these glasses have a range limit. This gives me no amount of ease. Instead, I think of all the ways someone could take advantage of this weakness and shudder.

I jerk to a halt no more than forty feet down. Upwards all I see is a hazy blackness and the same sight meets me from below. The end isn't even close and the beginning has barely been breached.

"Katniss?" Finnick calls.

"I'm fine," I say.

"Do you see anything?"

"No, nothing…" and then an urge of impatience draws Peeta's name to my lips. Yet, still, I get no answer and I say, "I can hear water."

"Okay, I'm going to pull you back up now," says Finnick. "We'll find more vines and see how far that gets us."

As the rope grows taunt and moves slowly upward, I realize how long that'll take. The pulling me back up, finding more vines along the other dangerous, farther away tunnels potentially full of tributes, and then tying them together... testing them, lowering me back down the spaces I've covered... it's way, way too long. Long enough for something else to happen to Peeta, or for an injury he's sustained to bleed out. It's a risk that I'm not willing to take, but when I pull the knife from my belt I know that cutting the rope is something I'm willing to do. My life for Peeta's, I've been prepared for that since the Quell announcement. And who says I'll die? There was no cannon shot for Peeta, he's alive and wasn't prepared for the fall. I am, I'll be better off.

Or so I hope, as I slice easily through the vine and cut myself loose.

For a space of five seconds I hear Finnick's incomprehensible shouts, then there is silence. And falling, a feeling indescribable. Breathless and adrenaline pumping and an event that leaves you queasy in the stomach with anticipation and terror, but I refuse my limbs to flail. Instead, I relish in the feel of the air rushing against my form, swathing around me, whipping my braid into the air. I can't say how long or how far it is; only that the walls around me open wider and wider, until I close my eyes because of how dizzy it all makes me. Unable to see and not checking beforehand, I'm unprepared when the water festinates up to meet my fall.

The pain is all I feel. An icy, splintering fist in the face. My ear drums pop, nose throbbing, skin stinging, and my mouth opens instinctively to breathe, inundating with water. And then I use my arms and legs, like my father taught me, struggling against the force of the cold water and the surge of aches across my entire body. All I need is air, until I'm sputtering and gasping at the surface.

Almost instantly, I apprehend I don't have any glasses on, staring out helplessly into the dark.

But that doesn't matter, because though reeling from the blow of the water and dizzy, there is a sight too beautiful for me not to instantly grow breathless all over again at the sight of it. "Peeta!" I say, not too loudly, uncertain of who or what may be around me.

The water is deep and icy, black but clean. I cut through the slightly wavering surface with my arms, steering toward what looks to be the only shore. I wonder if Peeta managed to get there, or if, since there is no pool in the Training Center and no way to learn to swim in District 12 that he has drowned. Except a piece of me tells me he would have managed it, difficultly, after recovering from the fall and the lag of his metal leg, but he might have. And the closer I get I begin to notice a form spread eagle against the rocks.

I manage this because the area around me is dimly illuminated, the walls and floor and ceiling still made of the black ebony-like material, but altered. A key piece changed. There are crystals, or glass-like objects, unusually and all differently shaped, but brilliant and blinding and giving off light, etched and embedded into the rock. Some are white, or clear, or more beautifully, dark blue. All of them gleaming brightly, hanging in icicle-like clusters from the ceiling as well, lighting the room with their brilliance.

And the 'shore' I'd seen, is only a small ledge of rock that falls forth from one of the tunnels I recognize at the cornucopia. The one that only reaches my kneecaps and it very obviously leads upward, by the angle in which it slants. I realize, upon climbing out of the water, that the vertical tunnel Peeta and I fell through has led us underneath the cornucopia. A tunnel that no one would willingly or sanely chose to take, almost as little as one would wiggle themselves down the cubby hole of the other one. No one will bother us, I conclude.

Possibly the most relief fulfilling thing about this room, isn't just the light or the unreachable quality of it but the water, clean and drinkable and cool. Sweet tasting as I hack and cough and rush over to Peeta's side. Clothes are plastered to his persona, as he lays on his back unmoving and I fall to my knees, grab his shoulders, and shake. "Peeta!" I say. "Peeta, can you hear me?"

My fingers flutter to his lips, feel how cold they are and see how purple their coloring is. He has no glasses as well. He's jerking, shaking, shivering and then I realize, so am I. "Peeta!" But he's unconscious, and I run my hands along the side of his face, through his dripping curls.

_What do I do?_He's so cold. The air is so frigid down here, so deep in the earth. Now that my eyes have adjusted, I can see that the water isn't very large in width, only depth, and this area is in actuality, smaller than the cornucopia set up. I think of Finnick and Mags when I see the gaping hole in the ceiling, wondering what they're doing or thinking at this moment... and what they would do to help Peeta.

I have to make him warm, I know. Get him out of these clothes. Teeth chattering, ears and nose still aching and pained by the water, I struggle to get the thick sweater over his head, and then wiggle the pants off. A bucketful of water is poured out of his boots and then, finally, I kick myself out of my outer layer of clothing. More skin is exposed by our simple undergarments, thin white shirts and shorts, but they are less wet. I wrap my arms around Peeta, press against his side, one leg thrown around his.

I close my eyes, wait. Draw into him; imagine my heat falling off of me and over him, though I have little to start with. After a while, I press my lips against his shoulder. Tuck my face against his arm, wait. Count the moments ticking by with the sharp, hurtful breaths I draw in. I can't help but think how close I came to losing him, if he'd not managed to get himself out of the water or had hit it wrong, or had somehow hurt himself on the walls of the vertical tunnel. All my plans and hopes for these Games would have died with him. I would have failed before even the first night had come to pass. _Maybe it has_, I think. There's no way to know underground when the sun and moon trade places in the sky. Except, I know that's not true. The Capitol anthem will tell us when it's time to settle for the day. And the Bloodbath has not even ended, so I wait.

I left my bow and arrows up above with District 4, lost my knife in the water along with my glasses and Peeta's glasses. And our clothes are soaked. We're vulnerable to attack, Peeta unconscious, me without weapon or protection. Frantically I try to think of something I could use as a defense. Maybe the water, if a tribute that actually dares to go down the small, claustrophobic tunnel comes from a background of no swimming. But I can't take Peeta out very far, not out of weapon range or my leg's reach of the bottom, I can't haul him through the water... so the water is a weakness, not our weapon to use, because they can throw him in there, or me, if efficiently injured first.

That's when I hear the cannon shots. There are seven of them and, after the sound of them fades, a coughing rouses me from my dread at knowing seven of the victors I'd gotten to know over the Capitol week are gone. Peeta chokes on water, spits it out and then his eyelashes flutter open and I hug him tighter, noticing the way his lips tremble. "Peeta?"

He smiles, stiffly. "Careful," he says. "There's fish."

"Fish?" I say, confused, relieved beyond knowing. I sit up to get a better look at his face.

"In the water, fish," he says. "I think one bit me."

I laugh, but shake my head. Numbing warmth starts to run down my cheeks and Peeta's smile turns into a frown.

Peeta sits up. "Katniss?" And now he's concerned about me, adding to the insanity of it all. Him, falling. Me, going after him. This arena, this room, the reminder of my father everywhere hand and hand with District 12 and home, and Peeta, cold, unmoving...

I bury my face into my hands to hold in the awful gasping sounds I make when I sob, and Peeta pulls me into his lap. His hands rub up and down my shoulders and arms. "It's alright," he says and I nod my head, but still the sounds aren't stopping.

"We found water," Peeta tells me, whispering. "And light, too." I know he's trying to make me feel better, to be optimistic, and after a moment, he gives up on that, turns me in his arms, head against his shoulder and just shushes me.

It doesn't take too long for me to get a hold of my emotions, and finally I am able to say, without faltering, "Don't... don't ever do that to me again."

"Never," Peeta says.

My nose is running like crazy and I don't even have a shred of fabric to use as a handkerchief. Peeta lets me go for a moment and rips off a handful of moss from a nearby wall. I'm too much of a mess to even question it. I blow my nose loudly and mop the tears off my face. It's nice, the moss. Absorbent and surprisingly soft.

I notice a gleam of gold on Peeta's chest when he pulls me close again, both of us sill shaking. My fingers turn it around betwixt them. It's the same necklace I had noticed the other day, but I examine it neutrally, while we sit, clinging to each other for warmth. Tucked underneath his chin, I thought maybe I'm at least partly hidden from the cameras, but they must be on us, if they weren't moments before. Everyone saw my crying. I'm not acting myself. I know it, they know it. I run my thumb along the mockingjay symbol.

"I left behind our allies," I say.

"Do you think they'll look for us?"

"Sure, they'll look for us," I say without a doubt. "What really matters is if they want to kill us or make an alliance all over again."

Peeta has nothing to say to that, because we both know everyone in the arena is looking to kill us, with our scores, and our fame to the sponsors. Which reminds me, what is Haymitch doing? Is he too drunk to even notice that his tributes are freezing to death?

Once my hands have stopped shaking, I pull away from Peeta and decide it's time to do something. Redeem myself. I check our surroundings again, our pile of wet clothes, because it makes me seem composed or in charge. On the far side of the cave, where I've neglected to notice in my worry, there's the source of the noise I heard when dangling up above. A waterfall tumbles from another, slighter tunnel in the ceiling all the way across from us. Its edges and surrounding rock surfaces are grooved, not smooth. Natural looking. I wonder where it comes from, so far overhead. I wonder if there's a way out of the caves if we follow it. But we are in no shape to go wandering, we need to make camp, and there is no telling if that waterfall runs throughout the cave walls everywhere, in all directions to confuse us with no true destination.

Peeta's statement about the fish turns about to be true and I manage to catch one using my hands. It's small, though, and when I look around there's absolutely nothing to make a fire with. We must eat it raw, despite how risky that is. These fish are the only source of food I've seen so far in this arena, so I must content myself over them. While I prepare the food Peeta wrings out our wet clothes and finds a rock to hang them to dry on. Then we choke down the meek dinner and Peeta also gathers moss, lies out as much of it as he can on the floor and we sit there, my back against his chest, set between his legs, as there is only so much room.

Sitting makes me weary and restless. So I get up often to drink from the water. Peeta lies out after awhile, obviously spent from the fall and the swim that I've heard nothing about, that no doubt had been difficult to manage. A little more than a bite from a fish, I'm betting.

After awhile, the lull of the water falling from the ceiling gets to me almost as much as the feel of Peeta pressing into my back, and my eyelids begin to grow heavier. Just when I'm almost over the edge, the ceiling above brightens even more than the crystals, a seemingly projected apparition of the Capitol's seal appearing as if branded into the rock. When the first's strains of the anthem play, I think tiredly, _it will be harder for Finnick and Mags_.

But it turns out to be plenty hard for me as well. Seeing the faces of the seven dead victors projected overhead. The man from District 5, the one Finnick took out with his trident, is the first to appear. That means that all the tributes in 1 through 4 are alive — the four Careers, Beetee and Wiress, and, of course, Mags and Finnick. The man from District 5 is followed by the male morphling from 6, Cecelia and Woof from 8, both from 9, and the man from 10.

The Capitol seal is back with a final bit of music and then the cave goes dark except for the crystals. We don't speak. I can't pretend I knew any of them well. But I'm thinking of those three kids hanging on to Cecelia when they took her away. The way the woman from 9 looked crawling around in the dark. Even the thought of the glazed-eyed morphling painting my cheeks with yellow flowers gives me a pang. All dead. All gone.

I don't know how long we might have lain there, shaking as we still are, if it weren't for the arrival of the silver parachute. It glides down through the rock to land before us, coming from seemingly nowhere. Random slots in the ceiling? No, I don't know, nor care.

Peeta reaches for it first. He unties the cord and flattens the circle of silk. On the parachute sits a thermos. "What do you think it is?"I ask, wondering why Haymitch would send us liquid when we've plenty of it here.

"No idea." Peeta unscrews the top and then inhales, but gags at the scent. "Here, nothing I've ever smelt before."

I take a sniff. "Agh," I choke. "Bitter." More than that, though. A lot more. It's bitter and overwhelming and I have half a mind to say it's some form of extremely potent alcohol, considering the smell and the history of our mentor. The liquid is a strange orange-ish color and my stomach turns at the thought of drinking it.

"D-Do you think he's insane or just too drunk to notice which buttons he's pushing?" Peeta says. The humor in his voice would have sounded better if his teeth weren't chattering.

"Who knows," I say. But I know he's not either of those. Haymitch's gifts usually mean something, a message I'm just not getting. There isn't very much of this stuff, the thermos is only about a quarter of the way full. It must be very expansive.

Experimentally I put it to my lips, but Peeta stops me. "Me first, just in case," he says.

"Fine."

I watch anxiously as he takes a sip, then another, before it's too much and he begins to cough. "What does it taste like?" I ask.

"Bitter." Peeta makes a face, eyes scrunched; a grimace. "It's warm though, it's... it spreads. Try it."

I do, then rebuke at the searing way it falls across my tongue. The liquid slides like scolding water down my throat. But it doesn't hurt. I can feel it spread across my chest, loosen the grip of the cold. Peeta and I pass the thermos back and forth until it's about halfway gone and I feel warm from fingertips to toes. I put the rest into the fanny-pack, just big enough to hold it, and attach the bag securely around my waist.

Without the cold to distract or weaken us, we're both aware of how exhausted we are and make preparations for the night. Last year, I always tried to have my gear ready in case I had to make a speedy retreat in the night. This year, there's no backpack to prepare. Nor do I have weapons to ready. Only the thermos and our clothes, that after one examination tells me they're still unfit to wear. Maybe in the morning, though. Stiff, but close to dry, and I'll feel much better when we have something to protect us from at least the atmosphere.

Peeta offers to take the first watch and I let him. I lie down beside Peeta on the floor of the cave, telling him to wake me when he's tired. A few hours later, he does, and as he turns into my side while I sit up, I brush a hand unconsciously through his hair. I wish I had my bow, watching the water. Trembling where the waterfall collides into it.

After an hour or so, I hear something very, very far distant. The sound of the cannon startles me, although it makes little, if any, impression on my sleeping companion. There's no point in awakening him for this. Another victor dead. I don't even allow myself to wonder who it is.

Moments later, though, I hear a scream. It's so piercing to the ears that Peeta sits up in a whirl, jerked from sleep, and I rise to my feet meaning to do something, but I find myself weaponless. Unable to do anything, we alternatively choose to wait, listening.

As I watch, I feel the hairs on my neck begin to rise. Then there is the flash of some odd amount of figures, a splash and Peeta is standing also, moving to get me behind his back, but I shove him aside. I won't let something happen to him again, not so soon, not trying to protect me.

A head bursts to the surface of the water and we hold our breaths as Johanna howls in frustration. "You _idiots_!" she snarls, thrashing to stay on the surface of the water, and then flailing to get toward our direction, but she swims backwards, doesn't notice us. She faces the sudden pop of people surfacing in the water around her. "We could have taken them!"

"Without killing ourselves?" An unfamiliar male voice says. I recognize the rough, older face of Blight, male tribute of District 7 in the water and he sees me, over Johanna's bobbing head. If I didn't know any better, it looks like he pales.

That's when I clue into the fact that I'm stuck in a room with Johanna Mason one of the most vicious, unfriendly victors in all of existence. Peeta stalls my hand when I move to say something or flee, and he whispers, "There's blood."

And there is, coiling in the water like tendrils spreading slowly, infecting the clarity of it. Most of it swarms around Johanna, and another figure, next to Blight. A corpse, I realize, remembering the cannon shot. Wiress' corpse and my stomach twists, remembering the day I spent with the soft, distracted woman at the Training Center. Not only has she infected our water source, but Beetee, clearly not well struggles to pull her body and swim at the same time to the only means of dry land.

"Truce?" Blight says, startling me.

"Yes," Peeta hastily agrees. "Truce."

And I don't trust that. Johanna doesn't either, I assume, by the way she swivels around in the water, glaring at us in the dim light of the crystals. Clearly Beetee can't swim, and while Blight is afloat, he doesn't appear to move and looks to be tiring. Johanna on the other hand is an awkward mess of limbs to stay at the surface. I don't figure out why, until after I manage to swim out there, despite the risk of the cold, and pull them onto land. Beetee first, then Blight, and Johanna proves to be difficult, but once out of the water I notice the blood profusely falling from a gash in her thigh.

"Careers," she spits vehemently.

"Did they push you?" Peeta asks her.

"No," Johanna says back, gritting her teeth. Her glare falls to Blight. "Coward thought he'd rather take on the pit."

"Do you have any weapons? Something useful?" I ask.

"Does it look like we have anything? I lost my glasses on the fall and my axe sank!" She's furious, like always. And in pain. But even when Peeta offers her moss to press into the wound she snarls at him.

This alliance isn't a true one, only a temporary truce until one of us is strong enough to kill the other. In other words, as soon as I get a bow or Johanna's feeling better. Despite my wish for District 7 to die of hypothermia, I advise Beetee to remove his soaking clothes and they do so without my words. He's not much up for talking, District 3, and though Wiress' body was there moments ago it's gone by the time I check again.

Blight and Johanna are off to the side; Johanna leaning against a wall, hands meshed up against the moss on her thigh and Blight sprawls out in front of her, his back to us. There is silence once they're settled in. Almost an eerie calm. I offer to catch a fish for Beetee who's much nearer to Peeta and I, but he turns it down. "Are you not feeling well?" Peeta asks him.

Beetee peers at him from underneath his glasses. "A lot of things aren't well." And I have no idea what that means, but he sounds so grave that I decide he just wants to grieve for his district partner in peace.

No one sleeps, except maybe Beetee, a little. Peeta is intent on getting me warm again, hugging me to his chest, but I make sure to keep District 7 in my constant sight. I don't drink any of the thermos' liquid because I want to save it and I don't want our 'allies' to steal it. Or worse, I don't want them to steal our lives…

"We have to get out of here," I whisper to Peeta.

"Yes," he agrees just as softly. The only way out though is through the knee high tunnel that leads – at the best of my knowledge – to the cornucopia. We both know this. "When?"

"Soon," I say and then Johanna raises her head. As an excuse I kiss Peeta and I wait for her suspicions to go down. They do, but his lips are so warm, tongue even warmer... I break myself away abruptly. Force the thought of more from mind. I can't let this happen now, no matter how the fire in my lower abdomen roars, I know better. So I turn away and train my eyes on our truce members.

Peeta nuzzles his face into my neck, and I can almost hear him agree with me; _Soon._


	12. Chapter Twelve

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: This chapter ends a bit abruptly and on an odd thought but I've stayed up for a long time in a desperate attempt to finish it. Thanks for reading, sorry for typos. Reviews are faster updates! -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Twelve<p>

My nightmares are of screaming infants and the sound of my father's whistle. I can barely see anything, but I grope around in the dark shadowy mines, calling out for my father, asking him to show himself. I can hear him, but I can't see him. Yet somehow I know that his whistling is meant to soothe me and the crying child. I am only just barely picking myself back up from tripping when I hear it, the sound of the canary, screaming back at my father's melody.. I find him, the very moment he realizes the same thing. I watch the way his whole face freezes, the pickaxe in his hands stalling against the rocks with a sudden heart-stopping understanding.

Then, there is water everywhere and I can't breathe.

I jerk awake, gasping, my lungs starving for air.

Once my eyes aren't stinging and the water is out my mouth, I look over at Peeta, very much awake, and see the apprehension in his face. There is water surrounding us, up to our waists and around us our truce members are just sputtering awake, mouths and noses inundated with water while they slept.

Mind still reeling from the nightmare, the water icy across my body, I stare out across the cave of ours and know, that it had been too good to be true. Of course the Gamemakers wouldn't let us rest here, wouldn't allow us to live off of the pure water and good fish, and thrive underneath the lights of the crystals... no, they can not afford havens to be found within the arenas.

"It's rising faster!" I hear Johanna cry, struggling and splashing to her feet. Blight helps her, but she is all panic, brown eyes wide and frightened. If I didn't know any better, with only one glimpse of her rash red thigh, she's taken an infection and fever.

But Johanna Mason isn't of my responsibility. Peeta is and at that very moment, he rises from my side, and moves quickly to our drying clothes on the rocks. That might have been a good thought if we weren't already wet or that Johanna's observation wasn't completely true, the water already reaches mid-calf depth.

I grab Peeta by the arm, rip him away from the clothes and stumble toward the only means of proper exit. Beetee is already scrambling through the knee-high tunnel, and I force Peeta to his knees when he refuses to go before me. By the time I'm crawling through the water is past knee height and I have to hold my breath, submerge myself into the water then crawl quickly up the steep slope to gather air.

Robotic, half-awake mode fades after a few minutes of frantic, wet palmed climbing. It starts to sink in for a second, the nightmare a dull ache in the back of my mind, the wetness seeping through my underclothes frigid cold. I check to make sure I have the fanny-pack still, touch my cheek momentarily in mourning for my lost glasses, then reach forward to ghost my fingers along the edge of Peeta's ankle.

The further up we go the darker it gets. A hand grasps my ankle at one point and I bite into my cheek, unnerved, that Johanna or Blight has followed us. Or maybe both. Did I expect them to stay and drown? No, not truly. I wouldn't have minded it, and part of me feels compelled to slow my pace, make them unable to outrun the water... but whenever I attempt it, I hear Peeta's heaving pants fade ahead and decide separating from him isn't worth the death of District 7.

My hands are aching and peeling, my neck throbbing because of how low I hang it to keep my scalp from scrapping against the ceiling. The air isn't so cold with all the body heat pressed together and our heavy breathing, but that makes it worse. The suffocation is stuffy and tightly knit against my clinging clothes. I feel hard-pressed to breathe, the air soupy whenever I draw it in, so thin that there seems scare oxygen to it. An urge to hyperventilate comes to mind, but I grit it away, blind eyes glued on the steep tunnel floor.

Peeta calls to me several times, worried the water is just on our tails.

For a minute I think that it might just be that simple to escape the water, but then I hear a cannon shot and Johanna's howl of frustration is unmistakable, echoing around us in the darkness, stinging my eardrums. I feel panic, knowing it has to have been the water that caught up to Blight and drowned him, only one person behind me. And for one split second I feel sorry for Johanna, knowing he was her district partner, until the second ends and I feel a hand grasp me by the ankle, pulling me so sharply my chin cracks against the ground before my hands can catch myself.

"It's coming!" she says, panic evident in her voice. Johanna crawls on top of my legs and I try to squirm forward, escape from the hold of her hands on my shirt, but she's too strong.

"Peeta!" I say, suddenly worried myself when I feel the icy touch of the water on my toes. My hands reach forward, searching for him, his ankle, a hand.. _anything_.

With Johanna on top of me I'm pressed heavily against the rock, every breath even harder to draw than before, my ribs aching with the pressure. I try to buck her off but she barely moves, she too pressed against the ceiling, hard-pressed to breathe.

The water is at my ankles... my mid-calf... my knees. Johanna is pulling on my hair now, surging to get passed me, and somehow she does, tumbling free of our blockage in a gasping relief for my lungs. There's blood in my mouth, seeping from between my bottom front teeth. The taste of it, rusted and metallic, and the water rising swiftly past my thighs sends me into a slight frenzy.

I look back at the black behind me extending forever. The water has just begun to overcome my hips. Far ahead I hear everyone's scraping and panting. A terrible impulse to flee, to abandon reason and save myself, shoots through me. To climb over them all, elbows and knees and desperate fingernails.

But I trap my terror and push it down. That will only cause more trouble than anything, this time my survival isn't the goal. Peeta's is. I think of the eyes glued to the television screens in the districts, seeing if I will give into my impulse, as the Capitol wishes, or hold my ground.

I wonder if I would, if I were capable. If I didn't know that trying to climb over everyone else would only slow us all down and drown me as well, would I do it? To just fight them full out, perhaps even to have gone for the tunnel before any of them had awoken, seems so trivial. I remember how I did something similar when the mutations appeared in the last Games. Took off and only thought of Peeta when I'd reached the cornucopia. The familiarity of the situations sends a chill through me.

All my pondering thoughts end when I hear Peeta's shout, the sound of his metal leg screeching against the floor. Without hesitation I lurch forward, hand clutching Johanna's ankle, fingernails biting into her flesh. She's trying to overpass him too, I know and I can't allow it.

I struggle with Johanna, pulling and pulling until I hear Beetee's victorious exclamation.

The water is at the bottom of my ribcage now. Johanna is kicking at my shoulders and I have to tuck my face against my chest to protect it. I hear Peeta's warning shout, the words intangible to me above the furious meanderings of Johanna.

_Bang! _And my heart goes as cold as the water rising past my chest.

"Katniss! Katniss!" Peeta is shouting. In my moment of distraction Johanna successfully lands a kick to my ear, jarring me enough to release her. She gets away, disappearing in the black ahead, leaving me behind, my head spinning.

My hands are clawing at the rock when I finally stagger my way onward, the tunnel abruptly straightening horizontally, toward the sounds of shouting and combat. "Careers!" I hear someone say.

"Peeta, look out!"

_Finnick? _I think.

"Mags, get her," Finnick shouts, and then I feel a hand holding mine.

A frail, worn skinned hand with a surprising amount of strength. I know I'm free of the tunnel when the water is left behind me, the open air rushes around me and another person's warm, dry body is pressed into mine. Mags has still got a hold of my hand, when she mutters something to me and I feel a sharp stab of plastic on my cheek, then it repositions and the glasses settle easily on my nose.

I blink a few times, to clear my vision and see, the darkness suddenly morphing into the cornucopia.

Enorbaria and Finnick are locked in combat not twenty feet away, while Johanna lies sprawled across the ground on my immediate right. I spot Peeta supporting a wheezing Beetee, a dead Cashmere at their feet. Finally, inevitably my eyes zone in on Mags, confused, watching her gaped tooth smile as her dark eyes blink blindly in my general direction.

"Why..?"

She pats my cheek, blinks a few more times and then stands.

I'm about to argue, pull her back down, give back the glasses, but the spear comes whizzing out of nowhere, and Mags crumbles around it. I barely have time to catch her, shocked, the blood spilling across the floor at a startling rate. Brutus' brutish laughter rings after her cannon shot departure.

I find him with my eyes standing at the top step of the cornucopia, digging around for more ammo. I lay Mags to the rock, slowly rising to my feet. I'm walking at first, slowly heading toward him, hand dripping blood, then I'm jogging... running, bounding up the steps.

Brutus turns around the moment I reach the top platform. He has a spear, and I spy a silver bow within the pile of weapons within the cornucopia. He smiles at me when he sees me, spear coiling with his arm. "Angry, Kitty Kat?" he asks, mocking me. "Was that your crippled ally?"

I should be scared, instead my instinct kicks and the adrenaline pounds inside my ears. Brutus is an overgrown child, I realize, looking at him, the smile on his face. He's enjoying this, these Games. All of this is a game to him and it frustrates me. I loathe him for that, for enjoying the deaths of these good people almost as much as the Capitol does.

My fist hits him across the face before either of us blink.

Instantly I regret that, because my hand is throbbing and my middle finger is bleeding, the pinky numb. Though the effect is worse on him, because he's dropped the spear, face turned aside in a nurturing hand. I move around him, grab the bow, load it, twist and the first arrow sinks into his temple effortlessly.

My right hand is still shaking when I reload the bow, pull a sheathe of arrows over my shoulders and survey the tributes below. Brutus' cannon shot draws their attention. "Katniss! Katniss!" Peeta keeps repeating, annoying me beyond knowing. _Does he mean to draw people to him? Or does he truly think me dead?_

Beetee is limp in his arms, blood running out the back of his shirt. I wonder for a moment how Cashmere died; Beetee? Or Peeta? Or Finnick? Then I decide I don't care and swing my bow around to aim at Gloss, skittishly rounding the next step, staring up at me.

He's prepared for the arrow and dives to avoid it. "Enorbaria!" Gloss shouts. Clearly he's worried, knowing that with me up here and with a bow that it's all over. Enorbaria breaks away from an ugly go at Finnick, turns and notices me just before my arrow catches the side of her bicep. It's barely a scratch, _damn hand, _and she's running, her and Gloss gone within a heartbeat.

I spring forward, ready for a pursuit, but what stops me is Peeta, sinking to the ground with the distressed, mewling Beetee. Still holding tightly to my bow I run toward the pair, drop to my knees and grab Peeta's shoulder tightly. He jumps, whips around, "It's me," I say and I see his whole pinched, distress face recover.

"I couldn't find you, I though..." but he stops himself, hears Beetee cough. "Can you help him? Cashmere got him... but I can't see. I don't know where all the blood's coming from," Peeta says, hands wandering the planes of Beetee's shoulders and neck.

"His back," I say. "Flip him, so we can stop the bleeding." It's all I know to do. I set aside my bow, and I'm about to tell Peeta that we might want to go get some moss from a wall, or something when Beetee shakes his head.

"No," he wheezes. "Leave me here... let me... this is best.."

I can still feel Mags blood sticky between my fingers, and I clench my jaw. "No. You're not giving up that easily."

"You're a victor," someone says behind me, voice harsh. "Act like one."

I look over to see Finnick holding up a feverish, flushed face Johanna. He lowers her to the ground beside Beetee and grimaces at me, a silent thing... a greeting, I realize. And I swivel about for a moment, seeking out Mags body, but find nothing. I return his grimace.

After a few minutes, I turn back to Peeta, and compose myself. "Do you think you could feel yourself over to the wall and collect us some moss?"

"Finnick can do that," says Johanna. "He can see better, I don't want any mold getting in there."

I relent, if not uncertainly. I get over that quickly though and Peeta helps me flip the protestant Beetee. I overlook the wound. Made by a knife, but not very deep, a superficial bleeder if anything. The only thing that worries me most is the fact that it nicked the back of his neck fairly bad.

We put down Finnick's armful of moss and lay Beetee on his stomach again. This time I sit back on my heels, trying to think. What do I have to work with? Moss? I feel like my mother when her first line of defense for treating everything was snow. I look over at the cornucopia, but there's nothing in there that'll help us. "We have nothing but moss," I sigh, and hold out a hand. Fortunately the stuff seems to be pretty clean. I make a thick pad out of the moss, place it on Beetee's cut, and secure it by tying vines around his body.

We get some water into him from the overflowing hole of it that we'd originally come from and then place him more comfortably on his stomach to sleep. "I think that's all we can do," I say.

"It's good. You're good with this healing stuff," Peeta says. "It's in your blood."

"No," I say, shaking my head. "I got my father's blood." The kind that quickens during a hunt, not an epidemic. "I'm going to see about Johanna." I take a handful of the moss to use as a rag and join Finnick at her side.

Johanna doesn't resist as I slice off the torn edges of her shorts near the cut on her upper thigh and scrub the blood from her skin. She hisses and twists, but doesn't complain. I can feel the fever on her skin, the heat worse in this cold environment. I try to think of anything that might help, not because I particularly like her... at all, remembering what she did to me in that tunnel... but because of Finnick.

Finnick sits near Johanna's face, petting her sweating brow. He re-accounts something of how he ended up here, the happenings after he lost Peeta and I. Johanna mumbles something I don't catch, but Blight's name is in it, and she seems upset, for a fleeting moment.

"I'm so sorry, Johanna" says Finnick. It takes a moment to place the true sympathy in his voice. I felt something like a pang in my chest; realizing for a second just how kind a person had to be to feel so compassionate towards someone like Johanna.

"Yeah, well, he wasn't much, but he was from home," she says. "And he left me alone with these three." Her eyes briefly land on Peeta, Beetee, and I, or as close as she could without having any glasses on.

Which makes me feel guilty, because every time Finnick looks up at me I wonder if he saw Mags give up her glasses for me. I can't help but think she might of seen Brutus if not for that. Maybe then, I wouldn't feel like I'm in debt to District 4.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**_Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended._**

_A/N: Okay this chapter has a slow start but by the end of it quite an important bit. Hopefully it's good, I feel as though this writing is a bit stale. Hope you like it. Sorry for typos, please review. Thanks for reading, enjoy. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Thirteen<p>

Early morning of the second day is spent caring for our injured ally members.

I can't help but feel forced into the whole thing. The thought of additional victors dying bugs me more than I think it should and it unnerves me as I work over Beetee, pressing moss into his wound, forcing the rest of that strange orange concoction Haymitch gave of us down his throat, as well as Johanna's. I've done the Hunger Games thing before, marched myself on while the others fell around me. Even little Rue had been lost to me, and I went on. Though her name still causes me pain I know it was for the better, that her death could have been worse.

I try not to dwell on this hesitation much, struggling with human instinct, but instead work on the fastidious bits of the present. Such as my new alliance members as a whole, and forcing myself to accept them. Finnick is okay, I suppose, useful and has already proved himself to some extent. The stamp of Haymitch's approval around his wrist also helps that some, considering I can not handle Peeta all myself while he is blind. Beetee isn't one to be deceptive and I _had_ wanted him since the beginning. The problem is that all I can think as I try to come up with ways to help Johanna's infection is, _now how am I suppose to kill her?_

She does not have very much benefit, considering the shape she is in. Along with that I never truly liked her, even before in a fit of desperation she almost killed me. It is for Finnick that I find some vines and tie the moss around her thigh, hoping to starve the wound of air and festering germs.

As I was taking care of District 3 and 7, Finnick busied himself with making everyone beds of moss across the rock floor. Somehow I could tell he just wanted to keep his hands busy. Finnick has not said much to Peeta and I, but he says something to Johanna every so often.

Peeta is also trying to be useful. He feels himself toward the cornucopia before I can object, empties out a few arrow sheaths and starts collecting water from the knee-high tunnel we had escaped from. "What are you doing?" I ask worriedly when he begins crawling further inside it.

"The water is retreating," he says, popping back out. His hair is laughably frizzy and mused, but my lips are pressed into a solid frown. "We need to get some before it's all out of reach."

"That's a good idea, Peeta," Finnick says. "Here, take my glasses. It'll be easier this way."

Immediately I snap, "No." The two of them swing their heads around to stare at me; or as close as Peeta could locate me in the dark. I hesitate. All I can think about is Mags giving me her glasses and now another member of District 4 is trying to do that same... I already owe him so much. And I already don't understand why Mags would give them to me, without explanation. Finnick only deepens that mystery. "I think it's better if Finnick and I have the glasses," I say, honestly. "We're the best fighters and if the Careers come back we'll just have to work extra hard to shield all you guys."

"Okay," Peeta relents, un-abraded. We all turn back to our work.

Beetee's wound is admirably better than Johanna's, but he does not seem to be taking the effects of blood lose as well as her. After Finnick lays out Beetee's bed he falls easily into a fitful sleep. Not long later, nearer the time I guess to be about ten in the morning, Johanna reluctantly rolls to her side and closes her eyes.

With the sick taken care of, I think to restock my lost weapons. The bow and arrows I gathered during the Career fight is good enough, but still, I garb a second of both, a knife for my belt and bring back blind Peeta an awl. Finnick does the same, arming himself up to the teeth with trident, nets, and knifes.

For Johanna, Finnick digs around for a lethal pair of axes and places them beside her as she sleeps. I thought it odd at first, but than my mind caught up. Of course. Johanna Mason. District 7. Lumber. I bet she's been tossing around axes since she could toddle. It's like Finnick with his trident. Or Beetee with his technology trick in the past. Rue with her knowledge of plants. I realize it's just another disadvantage the District 12 tributes have faced over the years. We don't go down in the mines until we're eighteen. It seems like most of the other tributes learn something about their districts' trades early on, while we do not. There are things you do in a mine that could come in handy in the Games though. Wielding a pick. Blowing things up. Give you an edge. The way my hunting did. But we learn them too late.

And now I'm thinking of Gale, deep down in that horrible mine, with President Snow's threat hanging over his head. So easy to make it look like an accident down there. A silent canary, a spark, and nothing more... I place aside my bow and arrows, sighing.

Gale leaves an odd dull twinge in my heart. It's almost like he's forgotten. A piece of me that's unreachable. I get a similar feeling that I would get after my father's death. A desire to cry out and beg him to come back and tell me where he's gone. Demand where he's been, why he would leave..

Before I can get too into that, my thoughts are interrupted by Finnick's voice. "Look, a parachute." I locate it easily, falling from the high arching ceiling. Silver fabric dull in the darkness of the arena as it lands. No one reaches for it.

"Whose is it, do you think?" I ask.

"No telling," says Finnick.

It turns out to be a pile of bite-sized square-shaped rolls. Finnick turns the breads over in his hands, examining their crusts. A bit too possessively. It's not necessary. It's got that green tint from seaweed that the bread from District 4 always has. We all know it's his. Maybe he's just realized how precious it is, and that he may never see another loaf again. Maybe some memory of Mags is associated with the crust. But all he says is, "Guess this is what we have to eat."

The rolls are salty. There were twenty-four of them, and we split them among ourselves with five to each. The four left over are for later, and no one wants to voice that's the perfect amount if one of us happens to be lost in that time. We all drink sparingly of the water Peeta gathered, then sit in silence.

To keep my hands busy I start to toy with the feathers of some of my arrows. Finnick takes up a few vines and attempts to weave things out of them. Every time the bowl or basket falls apart he mutters under his breath and tries again. Peeta seems to grow tired of sitting around, tracing shapes on the floor, staring out into darkness and nods off.

I know it's not possible to judge the time of day by sleeping cycles. I estimate it must be going on three or four o'clock in the afternoon, and I know that we've been in the arena for about a day and five hours. Twelve of us are dead. Twelve alive. Somewhere in the tunnels, seven are concealed. Two of them are the Careers. I don't really feel like trying to remember who the others are.

For me, the tunnels have quickly evolved from a place of protection to a sinister trap. I know at some point we'll be forced to reenter their depths, either to hunt or be hunted, but for right now I'm planning to stick to the cornucopia. And I don't hear Peeta or Finnick suggesting we do otherwise.

For a while the arena around us seems almost lifeless. The darkness is obsolete and the cold, thin air sways around us every so often. Then, in the distance, comes screaming. It's impossible to know where the source of it springs. All the side tunnels seem to shack with the shrill woman's cry. The sound of it is so loud that Johanna is jerked from sleep, the later cannon fire waking Beetee as well.

_Thirteen_, I think.

The arena calms again after that. Beetee falls into a more fitful sleep than before, supposedly caused by the recent cannon shot. He mumbles under his breath as he tosses and turns, then randomly cries out, body arching into the moss pad underneath him.

I move to his side to feel the fever on his brow. Just like with Johanna I am helpless to cure it, though when I peek at the wound it seems normal. Could it be the moss? Or maybe the water is contaminated with something that causes sickness in the injured? I might have assumed the orange liquid at fault, if not that Johanna had gained her fever before I gave her some.

"Odds, curse it!" Finnick says, startling me. He throws what vines he had been working with to the ground and then looks up at me, frustration in his eyes and creases on his forehead. "These aren't the same as seaweed," he says, when he realizes I'm staring, but almost immediately picks up a small piece of vine, knotting it between his hands.

Watching the clearly upset Finnick hard at work manipulating that length of greenery, I don't know if I should say anything to make what happened with Mags better. Instead, I remain silent. I watch him do it until my eyes blur his fingers and the vines together.. or maybe he's just going faster. "Why don't you get some rest?" I say. "I'll watch for a while."

"No, Katniss, I'd rather," says Finnick.

I look in his eyes, at his face, and realize he's barely holding back tears. Mags. The least I can do is give him the privacy to mourn her. "All right, Finnick, thanks," I say. I move to Peeta's sleeping form, pressing my back into his front for warmth, hoping to drift off almost immediately. Alternatively I find that all the weariness I was feeling moments ago is gone.

I stare into the cave, thinking of what a difference a day makes. How yesterday morning, Finnick was on my kill list, and now I'm willing to sleep with him as my guard. He helped me reach Peeta and knows that Mags died because of me and doesn't hate me. I can't understand why. Only that I can never settle the balance owed between us. If Johanna somehow recovers, that might do it, but I don't have high hopes for her. All I can do at the moment is go to sleep and let him grieve in peace. And so I do.

It's the sound of Beetee's shriek that wakes me some hours later. Peeta's still out beside me, oblivious to the thrashing man a few yards away. I sit up to find Finnick beside Beetee, petting his brow with a wet wad of cloth Finnick ripped from his own shirt. "How bad is he?" I ask.

"Delirious," says Finnick. "He was awake awhile ago, talking nonsense."

Finnick looks exhausted so I offer to take his place, and he relents, though reluctantly. He crawls over to the moss padding beside Johanna and is out in minutes. I take the cloth Finnick had been using and wet it in some of the water again, brushing it over Beetee's sweaty forehead and then down the side of his face. Wanting to help, I rouse him as much as he would to flip him, then change the bandaging. I force a little more water down his throat, use one of the four left over breads to feed him. But no matter what I do, he's only half-awake. Lost between reality and nightmare.

Eventually midnight comes around, the Capitol anthem bouncing against the domed ceiling overhead is loud enough to make me cringe. In my lap, I cradle Beetee's head, fingers running absently through his hair. Same as last time the projection plays against the rocks of the ceiling. The first face to show is Cashmere's. Brutus is next, and I think of the arrow he took with him, deep in his temple. Or, even, the pair of useful glasses they were both wearing before their bodies disappeared. Wiress follows the Careers, making me glad for one second that Beetee is too trapped in terrors to notice this. Immediately following her is Mags and Blight, whose faces couldn't pass by quick enough. I look at Johanna's, Beetee's, and Finnick's sleeping faces. All of them have lost their district partners.

When I look to Peeta, I find he's awake, probably because of the anthem. The picture of the female from 10 is still lingering on the ceiling and for a moment the blue-white hue of the projection is illuminating the cornucopia. Peeta lowers is eyes to lock with mine. There is no doubting that we are both thinking the same thing.

The world darkens again, but I can still see Peeta blindly rise to his feet and move to my side. I stir, slipping Beetee's head back against the moss and accept Peeta's arms when he wraps them around me.

We are silent for a long while. Peeta rubs a tense spot between my shoulders and I let myself relax a little. I wonder why this place reminds me so much of the mines, but doesn't look a thing like them. I wonder what's going on back home.

Prim. My mother. Gale. Madge. I think of them watching me from home. At least I hope they're at home. Not taken into custody by Thread. Being punished as Cinna is. As Darius is. Punished because of me. Everybody.

I begin to ache for them. Peeta must have noticed my sudden stiffness because his hands freeze and I feel him slip from my side to pull me into his lap and press his front against the length of my back. The feel of his fingertips running through my hair, as he says softly, "Are you alright?"

For a minute my throat is so choked up with my longing for home that I can not speak.

"Katniss," Peeta insists.

"I'm fine."

Why does it even matter? I'm here for Peeta. I should be asking him if he is fine. After the multitude of times I have nearly lost him, in only one day of these Hunger Games, I should really be thinking about him. I turn around so that we are face to face and almost instantly one of his arms drape around me, palm pressing into my lower back. My legs fall on instinct around his waist, a more comfortable way to sit.

"What about you? How are you holding up?"

He laughs, quietly. I can feel its vibrations reverberating through his biceps and into my form, giving me goosebumps. "I'm fine." He tugs me playfully closer, just barely lifting my hips with his, leaning our faces together and my stomach does a unusual twist. Even lower than that, I feel a strange throb spring up the length of my body. Peeta doesn't notice. "As healthy as a horse, really."

I fall silent as I survey his face closely. The undeniable brightness in his eyes, the tilt of his lips, the hot breath fanning against my cheek. I stare and stare, until Peeta grows tired of the silence and closes his eyes. "I can almost see you, if I imagine your face," he says.

That makes me worry, remembering he's still blind. Defenseless to anything. Mutts. Gamemaker traps. Careers. Suddenly, one of his hands move, touching my cheek hesitantly at first, then moving and tracing my cheekbone, circling my eye, down my nose, ghosting across my lips.

I lean away, trying to think, but after a few moments, I give into the whisk of his skin against mine.

I close my eyes, too. Feel his delicate thumb brush across my eyelashes. Fingernails weaving through the hair on my scalp and pushing it back. Peeta shifts forward a little, body grating against mine, causing friction. I shudder. His other hand against my lower back tugs me closer, and the feel of damp against my throat causes me to start.

My hand moving as fast as a striking mutt presses against his chest and pries us apart. I don't understand the fiery blush that runs down my back, over my shoulders and, even more hotly, burns directly in the spot Peeta had pressed his lips. All I know is that this feeling is familiar. And the one where I'm in over my head or not in control of the situation is even more familiar.

"Sorry," Peeta breathes. He disentangles us so that instead of stacked on top of each other, were sitting crisscrossed opposite one another. The smile plastered on his face does not make me believe his statement, but I'm distracted from that when he fishes something out of his shorts.

The object is gold... my golden mockingjay pin. My eyes snap to his face. I had completely forgotten about it. Last I remember I left it pinned on my shirt that we left behind during our escape from the rising water. Then I recall that moment right before we ran and I had to drag him away from our clothes... "Thank you," I say.

Peeta pins it easily onto the strap of my undershirt and smiles. "I wanted us to match." Briefly he touches the locket around his neck, the engraved mockingjay across it winking at me in the dark.

I sit staring at him, while he stares blindly in my direction, until the thunderous silence is broken by Beetee crying out. I turn to the man, reaching for the wet cloth, but when I'm lowering it to his face I find his eyes wide open.

"Beetee?" I ask.

He squints up at me. His normal glasses crooked and cracked from the fall he took yesterday. "Wiress? Is that you?"

"No, Beetee," I told him softly. "It's me, Katniss."

"Oh, Wiress." Beetee twists to his side, facing Peeta and I, but not seeing us. "It's all gone so, so wrong. This wasn't suppose to be. You weren't suppose to get hurt, I'm sorry.." and the man began to cry.

The Quell. He's talking about the Quarter Quell, and grieving Wiress, still. Not having experience in the ways of grown men sobbing as Beetee is now, I am too stunted to move. It's Peeta who comforts the sickly man. I think about doing the things I do for Prim, but Peeta simply takes one of Beetee's big hands into his own strong, square ones and squeezes.

"It's okay, Beetee," Peeta murmurs. I begin to dab at Beetee's forehead with the cloth again. "No one thought this Quell should have happened."

"No," says Beetee. "No... not... Wiress," he broke off there, coughing. His eyes are streaming when he recovers, chest heaving to retain air. "Have you forgotten? The rescue... the plan.. someone must have.. a betrayal on the inside... arena change.."

Peeta's eyes spring around to find mine. _He's not talking about the Quarter Quell... _but he is. What other arena could he be speaking of? Cautiously, I touch Beetee's shaking shoulder, to gain his attention once more and ask, "What rescue plan, Beetee?"

Beetee squints up at me again. "Wiress? Is that you?"

"Yes," I say. I find Beetee's other hand and grasp it tightly. "It's me, Wiress."

"Oh, Wiress," he repeats. "They changed it!"

"I-I know.."

"District Thirteen..."

Peeta shakes his head suddenly. "He's delirious, Katniss."

I press my lips together, then say, "That's what Finnick told me."

"Well, he's right. Maybe Beetee's thinking of his old Hunger Game. He's making the connection of how this arena is different from his last.."

"But then what's the rescue plan?" I demand.

I think of the way Finnick's been acting. Even from the beginning. The way he looked after Peeta fell; scared, uncertain, frustrated. _Lost_, I conclude, remembering the flustered way he's been putting himself to work around here. And the things he whispers to Johanna couldn't have been nothing. I saw the look of stubbornness on her face... the way both of them looked wistfully to Beetee, as if he held all the answers. I had thought to dismiss it then. What harm were a few looks? Especially between two injured people. But now I replay them in my head over and over again.

"What if what he's saying means something?" I hiss, so quietly it was almost as if I had not.

Peeta only shrugs.

"Katniss," I hear Finnick's voice and raise my head to find Johanna's wide brown eyes glued on my face. Then she shifts onto her elbow and I see behind her laying across his pad, Finnick is wide awake, listening. Finnick stirs, moves to sit beside Johanna and though his eyes are on her as he fidgets with an axe, I know he's speaking to all of us. "He's delirious.."

Johanna hisses something I don't catch. Finnick shakes his head, his easy smile gone for once.

Peeta is bewildered, but tries not to show it. He merely says a few calming things to Beetee, but the man turns toward me, fingers digging painfully into my palm. "Wiress, you have to... there's only so many... the odds are so... cruel, don't let it... save her... we have to, the-the mockingjay..."

Save her? The mockingjay? Wiress, save the mockingjay? Who is her? What is the mockingjay? Beetee couldn't literally mean a mockingjay bird... no, but the her he speaks of could very convincingly be nicknamed Mockingjay. And this Mockingjay could very conveniently be a girl whose been associated with mockingjays, or the symbol. On a watch. Branded into a piece of bread. Across a necklace. Painted in gold, pinned on the front of my shirt...

When I raise my eyes to Johanna and Finnick, I can see the truth reflecting back at me in their faces.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**

A/N: Thanks for reading, sorry for typos. Reviews are love. -Taryn(:

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><p>Chapter Fourteen<p>

"He's delirious," I say, numbly. And everyone eagerly nods their heads to agree with me.

But that doesn't mean I don't believe any of it. Doesn't mean he hasn't just said what he has. Beetee is delirious enough to say these things within the Capitol's hearing, during the filming of the Hunger Games... in normal circumstances, he would be dead already. Maybe all of us are dead already. If something has gone so horribly wrong that everyone around me seems to frown, hopeless eyes staring at Beetee, then maybe it is only a matter of time before we are all doomed.

I can not say I understand anything, really, let alone trust it. Only that these people around me have gone into this arena with entirely different plans than just winning. I wonder about Haymitch momentarily, if he had hinted to this, but my mind is reeling so badly nothing seems to stick out. Thinking of him, makes me think of District 12, of home, of family.. of every citizen who might have caught something Beetee said before the cameras turned away.

Would the cameras turn away? Was there a point to hide our failed rebellious act? Does it not only show that the Capitol had bested us? Except, what did they best us at? What was it all the Beetee mentioned? Everything going wrong. A betrayal on the inside. The wrong arena. Saving her, the Mockingjay.. _me_.

I can not even begin to understand what significance they mean to give me when titling me the Mockingjay, only that it ties into the rebellion. That it is somehow important enough to convince the past victors in this arena to put my life before their own. Like Cecelia, who ran to me in my time of need. Or Finnick, volunteering to jump into a pit after Peeta.. begging me not to go in myself. Mags, giving up her sight, at the loss of her life. Finnick being there for us when we were attacked by the Careers. All of these acts come back to me, scattered, building up. A ball of guilt and uncertainty and distrust lodging itself into my throat.

That's when I feel the betrayal. A white-hot sliver of it flashing in my heart. Haymitch must have known. He knew, encouraged, and possibly planned this. It has always been him to save me, to send those messages in his gifts... I recall the parachute with the rolls. _Was there a message in that?_ I wondered briefly, having not considered it before.

Everyone around me is waiting. Peeta does not seem to understand any of it and I do not know whether I should be grateful for his obliviousness or saddened by the fact that I bear the knowledge of this betrayal and play behind our back all myself.

I went in this arena to save him, and had thought my allies would back me up with that. Now I realize, that almost no one came in here without considering saving me, instead. That is almost enough for me to make sure Peeta wins, in pure spite. Except that seems childish. Selfish.

I turn to look at Finnick, who watches my expression cautiously. He smiles, weakly. An apology?

"Beetee was saying the same stuff earlier," says Johanna, boldly. "Finnick told you about it. All the nonsense talk. Beetee said things about District Thirteen, about it being alive, thriving." I saw Finnick cringe at her words. "Some ridiculous rescue mission for a _bird_. Can you believe it? And that Wiress, kept ticking and tocking.. while he told her that something's different." Johanna rolled those big brown eyes and I felt a twinge of intrigue at her words. All the hidden meanings. They can't be too complex.. yet, if I took her words literally.. the things that they suggest and say... they are too fantastical. I am not a person who hopes for things on a whim, on words two fever induced persons blabber.

Yet, I find myself leaning a little closer to her, cautious and certain.

"Really?" asks Peeta. "That's a bit wild."

"You bet," Johanna says flatly. "This sort of talk could probably start an uprising. Wouldn't want that, would we?" She throws back her head and shouts, "Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn't want anything like that!"

My mouth drops open in shock. No one, ever, says anything like that in the Games. Absolutely, they've cut away from Johanna, are editing her out. Possibly even anything they had kept of Beetee is being put out because of her. But I have heard her and I can never think about her again in the same way. She'll never win any awards for kindness, but she certainly is gusty. Or crazy. Or sicker than I thought.

No one seems to know what to say or do. I'm so uncertain about this newly discovered plan or idea that I can't think up a properly coded saying to convey the questions I have to Finnick or Johanna or even Beetee. Speaking of Beetee, he's already half asleep again and after prying my hand from his, Peeta lays him easily back across the moss.

Peeta and I return to our own moss beds in silence, the darkness around us for the first time suddenly suffocatingly full of life. An endless amount of cameras on us at every angle. Microphones picking up ever sound. I had no doubt that if they had the right technology, they'd install something that'd read our thoughts to them as well. I'm glad they can't, because the things I am thinking about would be treacherous in any situation, let alone ours.

My first priority is still Peeta, I know that. The basic needs are there also; water, food, shelter. We are lacking in an unfailing food supply, because the fish are unreachable and the only thing we had on the second day to eat was the rolls. My stomach cramps in a familiar way, empty except for the scarce water I drank from a limited water supply. The shelter revolves solely on seeing, and though I have glasses, Peeta lacks... not even my main priorities are in check. It is all touch and go. The common way of winning the Hunger Games.. out living everyone else.

I must think about these Hunger Games like any other, first. I must depend on the only certain fact, something the Capitol has guaranteed for seventy-four years before this, that there is one winner. Though perhaps these Games weren't ever meant to have a victor. Maybe that's why there is no food, no light... no hope. I can't afford to think it, even if it's a valid estimate. I have to hold fast to the belief Peeta can still win this, despite any plan to save me instead. There are nine tributes in his way, not including me. Two of them, Beetee and Johanna, close to death by sickness. Another tribute is close at hand, Finnick.. but then I start thinking of District 4 and what I owe them...

And though I try to think of this as a normal Hunger Games first, I can't. This isn't a normal Hunger Games. Not only is it a Quarter Quell, but I can not deny what was said tonight, what things were hinted at and confirmed.

There was a rescue plan, I conclude. A plan that a handful of victors were in on, Haymitch most likely, and.. insiders. Possibly people of the Capitol? Someone who could have tipped off Beetee or the person who told Beetee about the arena they should expect. Someone who could guarantee such things.. someone who was either caught or betrayed or perhaps only minorly sensed and was put to a stop with by someone with a higher power.

My hand unconsciously moved to fidget with the pin on the front of my shirt.

On a necklace, on a piece of bread, branded into a pocket watch. How many other places is this? Recalling my thought of the Games the night before the interview, I remember thinking that by dying in the arena I might become some dead remembrance of defiance.. a face to paint on banners. Would they write Mockingjay above that face instead of Katniss Everdeen?

My head spun and spun all night.

By the time morning of the third day arrives, or more accurately the point of which everyone could sleep no longer, I had come to only three conclusions. One, that we needed food. Two, that we needed to find more water, before we run out. Three, I needed to get Peeta alone, so I could somehow talk to him and see what of last night he retained.

There are three rolls left for breakfast. Since Beetee is the sickest he gets one full one, while the rest of us split one with a second person. That one scrap of bread goes down uneasily, with a sip of water. I know my stomach is still gurgling. With this on hand it makes it easy to bring up my idea. "I think I should go hunting," I say.

"Hunting for what?" asks Johanna.

"Anything, there's no telling what could be in here that we haven't seen." I think of the only time I spent in the caves, and that was with Peeta and Finnick and Mags, all of their running feet scaring off potential prey. Finnick and Peeta both aren't thrilled with the idea of me going off alone, but the threat of going hungry hangs over all of us. "It's either I hunt, or we starve."

Peeta starts to get to his feet. "I'll go, too."

"No," I tell him hurriedly. The whole point of going alone was because of this, to get away, but he understands that after a moment. My voice also implied that he would endanger me with his loud tread or defenseless blindness, from other tributes or threats. "I won't be long."

"I'll stay here," says Finnick. "Don't get too out of range, I don't know how long I can hold off the Careers myself." I nod, sling my bow and arrows over a shoulder and then like last time I made a decision to leave the cornucopia I am faced with the dilemma of choosing a path.

I pace the whole room twice, eying each tunnel, counting each stone, every vine.

"Katniss?" Peeta calls from his place near the others. He stares uncertainly in the direction of the golden horn. "Have you left yet? I thought I heard.."

"I'm here," I say.

"She can't decide which one to choose," says Finnick, clearly having been watching me.

"Last time it was a wide one," says Peeta, eyes closing. "It had a smoother ceiling, more square than all the others. Maybe something smaller would be safer? Less tributes."

"And more prey," I echo, my thoughts leading down the same path. There is a slender and tall side tunnel some two yards to my left. The walls are skinny, but so tall that my glasses can not truly decipher the ceiling. I remember that these glasses have a distance limit because of that. I don't like this tunnel no more than I liked any of the other ones. But I have to choose one, and this is the one.

The walls towering at my sides are unusually jagged. I pull the bow from my back, load it and continue at a slow pace but the width… there is hardly enough room for one person, let alone to turn my bow.

I move stealthily through the silent one-way tunnel. After quite awhile I begin to grow uneasy of the endless blackness ahead and the sharp, serrated edges of the walls closing in on me. There is no sign of prey, or water.

Suddenly weak, I lean carefully against the wall to rest. I've already gone too far. Peeta will be growing worried, and probably everyone else, considering the circumstances. That bugs me for no reason at all, almost as much as this arena does. The air has not warmed since the first day, and already, swallowing is difficult just knowing that water may be too scarce to find soon. Fatigue is creeping up on me, from only getting those few hours of sleep. I try rubbing a hand across my lower abdomen, hoping some sympathetic pregnant woman will become my sponsor and Haymitch can send in some water.

No luck. I sink to the ground.

In my stillness, my thoughts become a turmoil.

All of it is too much to take in; these Games, the fact that the Gamemakers seem hellbent on killing us all, the secrets that seem to be bouncing around between the other tributes.. a rescue mission? District 13? Me.. the Mockingjay?

I can't help but prefer my last Hunger Games to this one.

The sound of the cannon brings me up short.

I raise my head. Part of me wishes to immediately flee the way I came. To make sure that had not been anyone within my alliance. The other half freezes up, waiting, listening. _Listening for what?_ I think. Then I hear it.

The sound is faint at first. A soft whisk of rain drops, pitter-pattering against the cave floor. Somewhere far distant. A strangled scream echoed their footsteps, that soon weren't so faint. I sprung to my feet, bow loaded in seconds.

… the screaming hadn't been them, I quickly realized. It had not even truly been a scream, but instead, shrill, short, screech-like noises coming in response to their running feet. And the closer this source of sonar noise came the more unbearable it was to stand hearing.

I forced my knees to stay unbent, despite my wish to curl into a ball and cover my throbbing ear drums. I turned so my body was ready to run, but I waited.. I calculated my aim. There were tributes coming, with whatever that is chasing them. But either way, I know that it might not be the most preferred plan to stand my ground.. it is better than allowing both the tributes and the.. mutts to reach the cornucopia.

The first thing that comes into focus, about fifty meters away, is the back of a woman's head. Her silver streaked brown hair whipping out of the way as Seeder turns back around to spot me as well, eyes widening at the sight of my aimed bow. My hands still before releasing the quarrel into her chest. At her side is the morphling woman from District 6, struggling to keep up. Both of their faces terrified, screwed up into a pained scowl, cringing at the sound that comes from behind them.

I search their back, find nothing. Search the walls, see nothing. Then I raise my eyes, and watched as the black shadows hanging over their head stirred with life, and swooped down on the two women as a cloud of darkness.

"_Bats!_" Seeder screams. At who? Me? I let go my arrow before I can breathe, hit one of the beasts and it is flung to the ground, hit through a beady eyes. I'm close enough now to see their furry, beastly bodies. Razor sharp talons ripping at the women's hair and faces. Dagger-like fangs sinking into Seeder's shoulder as she struggles to free herself from them.

I should run. Run, warn the others, make sure they escape to another tunnel before these bat mutts reach the cornucopia, but my thoughts grow hazy. The sound of their squealing rings inside my mind, until I stumble backward a few woozy steps, then fall flat on my backside.

"Run, Katniss!" I can't tell whose voice that is. There are hands on my shoulders shaking me, pulling me to my feet. Locked painfully in my cramped fingers is my bow. A sharp stinging pain on my neck and face spurns me to life, Seeder's face in front of mine.

Blood runs like rivulets down her face, gauges in her left cheek spilling warm blood on my arms. A fluttering black figure nears my face and I thwack it with my metal bow, knocking it against the closed in walls. It falls to the floor, dead.

The disequilibrium my mind had felt moments before that had been enough to knock me down, fades in strength. Kind of the way an initial dose of drugs works powerfully, but once a body has built an immunity to it, the effects lessen. The bat's screeching becomes background noise.

There are too many of them to shoot down. Seeder knows that already and pulls me by the hand at first, in the direction of the cornucopia. It quickly becomes apparent I can outrun both her and the morphling, even with the bow pulled onto my back. But the bats, I can not.

I can't help the shout I make when they surround me. Their wings tangle into my hair, their claws catch across my cheek, and their fangs nip right through my clothing. I hear the others screaming, mostly the morphling. Unlike before I'm determined to stay on my feet, flinging out my arms, knocking the bats to the ground. But there are always more to replace the ones that manage to die.

My alliance has no doubt noted to the sounds echoing into the cavernous cornucopia. They can not know which tunnel due to the echoing, but must guess mine. Thinking of the blind, sick tributes waiting there, I pull the knife from my belt and began cutting the mutts down. I can hardly see through the flapping black mass of them wavering in front of my face, but I could feel Seeder's hand around mine.

Momentarily, I think about Beetee and his words and the rescue mission.. and the Mockingjay. And I know why she's helping, why she didn't tackle me on sight or trip me for the bats, but instead helped me up after I fell. Usually all of those things would have left me scowling, untrusting, watching my every step. Instead, it only confirms what otherwise seems impossible.

It frustrates me.

There are too many bats to fight, and they're too small of a target to even kill easily. Once in the cornucopia, either I have a chance to fight them in the open or make an escape through different tunnels.

We are just reaching the end, when I hear the morphling's body hit the ground. That's when I feel a sharp stab of panic. _Are the mutts venomous?_

As though sensing the end of the tunnel, or the escape of their prey, the bats swoop down all as one, the same they did to District 6 and Seeder before. This time I'm caught up in it. I jerk around, expecting it – _elbowing, clawing, slicing – _anything I can manage to do to throw them back. One cuts me over my right eye. Another bites straight through my shirt, fangs latching onto the soft skin of my ribcage. I cry out when another bat's talons catches against the dip of my collar bone and rips them upward my throat.

I know we are free of the tunnel when I hear Seeder crash to the ground, limbs flailing. A hand pressed into bleeding neck, another clawing at the bat that refuses to let go my side, I stagger to my own knees. I hear Finnick's voice above the bat's noise. I grab onto the nearby cave wall, use it to get back to my feet. Somehow I load an arrow, but it misses.

Something hits me like a brick wall, throws me to the ground and presses against me. Her voice is soft in the shell of my ear, "Keep your face down, run when I tell you."

I want to object. The same feelings that coursed through me when Mags gave up her glasses reappears full strength. This time, what stops me isn't a spear but it's the lack of screaming.. no sound from Peeta, nothing of my alliance but that one glimpse of Finnick's voice. It's the fact that I know she's doing this, maybe not because of Rue or because she wishes to sacrifice herself... but because of the name 'Mockingjay'.

The female morphling from District 6 is still screaming strong. Seeder counts low in my ear, and I can feel the body she wraps around mine taking all the blows, twitching, twisting away from the pain. "Now!" And I break into a run, leaping to my feet, eyes sweeping the cornucopia.

I spot Finnick, standing beside one of the side tunnels, waving me to him with his hand.

Already panting, wiping away the blood dripping from the cut on my forehead onto my glasses I careen to look behind me. Seeder throwing herself at the bats, driving them back, then turning to run also. The feel of her warm against my back I still remember.. the feel of Cecelia's sure hand pressing into my forearm... Mags paper-thin skin bloody against my arms...

I turn, throw the knife into the mists of the bats and it takes down about two.

Seeder isn't too far behind me. One of her arms fits easily over my shoulder, though there's so much blood soaked into her clothes that she does not have the strength to refuse my help. The screaming of District 6 is weakening, and the bats seem to draw toward her momentarily.. but that can't last long.

Hobbling, about half way to Finnick, he breaks away from the side tunnel and takes Seeder from my arms. I'm glad, because the bites I've received have started to sting. We reach the side tunnel and find my three other alliance members waiting there; Beetee leaning heavily into Peeta, Johanna scowling into the dark.

There is no time for greetings or explanations, we only continue on hobbling.

I expect the bats to follow, so I pull the bow from my shoulder and load it. I walk backward for most of the way, as Finnick leads the group, still bearing the injured Seeder. We are the most vulnerable thing I've ever seen. The morphlings cannon shot isn't long later. I made a mistake going hunting, or maybe it was only chance.. that the bats and Seeder and District 6 were already bound to reach the cornucopia, I was only unlucky enough to intercept them.

When it becomes apparent that the bats have made no move to pursue us we take a break. We couldn't have walked any more than a quarter of a mile. The tunnel we entered is not unique in anyway. Medium in size, in height, in appearance.

I go to Seeder immediately after Finnick lays her on the floor. "You didn't have to do it," I say, voice hoarse. The blood dripping from my throat falls hotly to my arms. I am not completely sure what I want to say, only that I can not stand that horridly liquidated sound of her breathing. "You didn't.."

"I wanted to," Seeder says, eyelids fluttering. I can tell she's slipping away. There is only so large a pool of blood can get before you know a person is beyond healing means. She looks nothing like Rue, but I can not help but associate the two.

I brush a shaking hand through her hair. What do I say? That I'm sorry? That _I_ had not wanted her to? Instead, I can feel a heated pressure gather behind my eyes and I turn away, find Peeta and press my face into his chest until I hear the _bang_ of the cannon fire.

"Peeta," I hear Finnick say above my head. "Take her glasses.. she would have wanted that, too. They're no use to her now."

I pull away so he can receive them. Once they're on I see his face grow appalled at the sight of me. "Katniss.." begins Peeta, but I cut him off.

"I'm fine, they're just a few cuts and bites."

He insists though, and everyone agrees, to use the rest of the water we have to clean the scrapes. Despite my heavy disapproval. They had taken the sheathes with them when they ran so Peeta uses some moss to soak within them. The chilled water that cleans my face free of blood, my neck, and even more precisely, the deepest bite received on my ribcage feels nice. I let Peeta do it because the exhaustion of not sleeping fully the other night is hanging on my muscles a lot more heavily than before.

Finnick personally carries Seeder's body to someplace far away where the Capitol will somehow receive it. Put it into a coffin. Send it back to District 11, who may just hate me now by the rate of tributes I help them lose... I think that, as first, then remember everything I've learned in the past day. Maybe they wanted her to do it, too. That they would rather see me, a stranger to them, rise out of this messy Games, than Seeder.

_But why?_ I think, not liking all the attention. I am used to taking care of myself, surviving by my own instincts. The fact that I hate owing people also drives the helpless frustration I feel about this 'rescue' plan. Am I looking at it too narrow mindedly? Is it more than just a handful of victors determined for me to win these Games?

Somehow, I know that's true. I had known since the moment President Snow greeted me personally at my own home in District 12 before the Victory Tour that what I had done with the berries was a little more than an act of desperation. It was defiance. Hope. Strength shown by a little girl, that stood up to the Capitol... leading to a spark...

Finnick is just reappearing from the dark. I turn to him. Stare at him as he takes a seat on the ground beside Johanna. "Why?" I ask. "Just tell me _why_." Why me? Why are you all doing this? What are you hoping for? Do you all look so lost because of the betrayal Beetee mentioned? Did someone tip off President Snow? Is that why we are trapped underground, far beyond the world's reach?

And if all that is true, _why are you still trying to protect me?_ If all hope of rescue is lost, than why continue to do this? To accept an alliance? And what do you plan on doing about being trapped inside the earth, if you still hope for rescue?

I wanted to voice them all, but couldn't. I wasn't sick with fever as an excuse. The bat bites weren't enough to feign poison deliriousness. There was no way I could whisper so much and get away with it, let alone him having enough time to whisper all the answers back.

I had to settle with that lighthearted look in the back of his eyes. "Because, what's a little hope gonna harm," says Finnick. That easy smile only he could manage is there. For a minute I don't see the shallow, self centered Career and victor I always thought he was before we met...

"A lot, apparently," I reply, touching momentarily where Seeder's blood stained the ground. Then thinking of the rebels who must have planned this escape from inside the Capitol. All the trouble they might have gone through, only to be caught or betrayed, and either put to death.. or survived, just to watch as we die.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**

_A/N: This one is pretty short. But lots of sweetness and movement. I think this is important for both of them. Because tomorrow they're going to have a pretty crazy day. Thanks for reading, sorry for typos. Enjoy. -Taryn(:_

* * *

><p>Chapter Fifteen<p>

The time that passes does not have a point of stopping nor starting. The only thing I know is that while Finnick decides to check out the cornucopia about half an hour after Seeder's departure, I stand up for the first time since sitting down and my whole body screams in protest. Despite that, I continue to pull the bow from my back and patrol our little group of allies. Johanna is properly out cold, but to be fair all this sleep is doing her wonders. Her complexion is brightening and the wound in her thigh has stopped festering. Though it is odd, considering we have not bathed it in water since yesterday night. Beetee is the same. Not well, but better.

Peeta has changed both their bandages, since the run from the cornucopia reopened the cuts along Beetee's back. He's also been building those same beds Finnick made before, laying out moss for everyone to lay on. I don't have the heart to tell him we won't be staying here long. We can't afford to prolong our departure. Water and food is essential, whether there is still a rescue escape or not.

Just thinking about it gives me a slight head-rush. All of it is so overwhelming, too much. Practically all my questions are unanswerable or incapable of being voiced. If only I just knew something, for certain. So I could attach myself to that goal and get it over with.

My knees begin to grow stiff from pacing back and forth from the edge of my alliance to the tunnel wall. So tired that I just fall into the wall the next time I pass it. I clutch the bow to my chest and drop my forehead to my knees. Let the Careers come, at least that way I can work my frustration out on them.

I thought I would get some peace and quiet sitting by myself but I can hear Peeta approach me from a mile away. He sits on the wall at my right and nudges my knees with his. "What's the matter?" he asks.

_How much does he guess? _Suddenly, I'm frustrated at him, too. "What's _not_ the matter?" I snap.

"Hey, you don't have to get mad. I only want to help." One of Peeta's hands reaches for mine. I pull away before he has it and watch out the corner of my eyes as he frowns. "Come on, Katniss. Talk to me."

I merely turn my face the opposite way. "It's just.. you wouldn't.." I feel the ever familiar scowl settling on my face. "Why can't you just leave it?" Doesn't he get that I can't even organize my thoughts, let alone talk about them? The sheer overwhelming quality of recent knowledge and having to speak to Peeta about it.. to try to conjure up some last minute plan or lie, or to fight that unending tug-a-war of who lives or dies, it is too much for me to handle at the moment.

I wait for him to leave. To get tired of the silence. To realize I don't have an excuse to tell this time around. But Peeta never moves an inch. Tightening closer to the wall, hugging my arms around my knees, I say, "Go do something useful." I want to be alone, with my thoughts.

"I'm trying to, but your being stubborn."

"I mean like, finding water or helping Beetee. Something besides bugging me."

Peeta doesn't reply, so I turn back to see his face and find him faintly smiling. There is a gleam of pain in his eyes, behind a wall of concern. "I thought we were past this."

"Past what?"

"The pushing me out."

"I'm not pushing you out," I say, a knee jerk reaction. "I just want to think."

Peeta reaches for me, again. I lean away from his touch, again. "I can tell it's bugging you. Just tell me about it. It'll help. Maybe I can help.."

"No," I say, without considering my words. "I don't need your help. You'll only make it more overwhelming, don't you see?"

"But it doesn't have to be," says Peeta. "I don't have to be a problem to you, Katniss. I don't _want_ to be a burden.. or.. or whatever it is you view me as. I'm not some business partner. It's not all just back and forth. Deal after deal. It's about giving and leaning." He careens toward me a bit and I turn my face away even further this time. "Katniss... stop trying to protect me. I told you, there's nothing for me back in District Twelve. Please, just tell me your not planning anything stupid." There is a significant pause, then I feel his hand on my side, and it slips momentarily past my knees and lays against my abdomen. "Think of the baby."

That's right. The cameras. The world peeking in and watching our every move. I can not tell if this is Peeta's intention by saying those words, but I do recall that I'm suppose to be pregnant. That I'm suppose to be madly in love with him.

Instead of that making me want to open up to him, I clam even tighter closed. Peeta's hand withdrawals and I stare out into the darkness of the cave sprawling out a few hundreds yards to my left. I think of all the kisses. That spring of pleasure he gave me yesterday. The night before these Games even started. Then, further back than that, when we had that moment. Me opening up to him. Why does that seem so difficult now?

I could turn to him and lie about my pains. Tell him a story about Seeder, something to appease the audience, but make me even sicker with emotions. Falsehoods that Peeta might fall for to get him off my back as well. But his words keep swiveling into thought... _it doesn't have to be that way._

He doesn't _have_ to be an added trouble on my back.

I don't _have_ to make up lies for him.

We don't _have_ to be completely fake.

But it just isn't that simple.. and I think he understands that. Which makes all the difference in the world, because I can't just surrender. To do what he wants me to do, wouldn't be easier, not to me. The one thing I do is I force myself not to move when Peeta reaches for me a third time, and I accept the caress of his fingers on my shoulder.

"Just relax, Katniss," I hear him say. His thumb presses deeply into my aching back muscles. "You don't have to be so guarded all the time. Not with me."

_He's right, _I tell myself. After everything we've been through it seems ridiculous that I would shut him out of all people. I loosen the hold I have on my knees slightly and let him pull me toward him.

Peeta crosses his legs and before I know it, my tense form is forced down against the ground. Head in his lap. Fingers undoing my braid. Sweaty, damp strands of hair sticking to the back of my neck and my cheeks.

With effort, I keep a hand at my side, resisting the urge to push it all out of my face. Instead, Peeta does it for me. Slower than I would have, softer, too. Brushing strands of it lightly away from my face. Fingertips lingering on my skin a moment too long. At first it is just the same as it always is. The way Peeta's touches effect me. The instant want for more, the unending flames of hunger... but this time I don't try to force them away or tame them uselessly. This time I let them run free. Feel it turn into live-wired energy inside my veins, exhausting me further, just as I thought it would. But I give it a few minutes... I close my eyes, give into the feel of Peeta's hand effortlessly touching me, caressing me, taking care of me...

Eventually the fire burns itself out. Becomes a warm ache. The want no longer makes me feel uncertain or desperate or in over my head. Peeta isn't an annoyance, or a problem, or a burden, or the never ending puzzle that always bemuses me. Just Peeta. Just comfort.

"What's the matter?" Peeta asks me for the second time. The rhythm of his fingers twining through my hair rocks me into a dull sleepiness. Piece by piece I begin to relax against him. "I want to help."

He sounds so much like Prim at that moment that I cave. I remember my little sister that I love so much, that I thought to forget after letting her go on the train ride to the Capitol. The day she came to me, begging for me to tell her something, to make her feel trusted.

I tip my head back and look up at Peeta through hooded eyelids. "I'm scared," I say, softly.. honestly.

Before I catch what emotion is on his face, Peeta moves. He collects me into his arms and chest faster than it takes for my legs to keep up, tangling up with his thighs and torso. But that doesn't matter, not when I feel his lips press into mine.

It is a short, innocent, reassuring kiss, but I can taste a whole world of difference inside his mouth.

"I don't want you to be," says Peeta.

His arms lessen their hold slightly so I can slip easily sideways into his crossed legs. I am instantly crushed against his chest again, and I can't say I'm displeased. I like the way it feels. The sure, strong, _real_ grasp. There is no uncertainty in this. No alternative motive. Not a show for cameras. Unconfused.

For the rest of the hour, Peeta holds me. One hand stroking the hair on the back of my head, and the other wrapped firmly about my waist. We don't say anything more. There is no huge confession on my part. No interrogation on his.

There is no need.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**

__A/N: I know it is a bit short, but I'm trying to slow the pace because it seems people do not realize how much time is really passing. Otherwise, thanks for reading. Sorry for typos. Enjoy. -Taryn(:__

* * *

><p>Chapter Sixteen<p>

Peeta and I pull apart when the parachute arrives. It is the same as yesterday, which strikes me odd. Twenty-four rolls of bread from District 4. Finnick counts it twice, shares a heavy look with Johanna and we split it the same way we did the past day.

I eat relentlessly, the bread soaking against my tongue like salted taffy. Succulent because it is the only food I've had since yesterday. But as I tear into the four meager pieces of bread, I ponder if they mean something. If it is in someway that all the mentors are talking to us. The way Haymitch talks to me, but this time these are messages only Johanna or Finnick, or anyone else in on the rescue plan can understand.

Finnick notices my predicament. "What time do you think it is?" he asks, to no one in particular.

"Can't be any later than noon," says Peeta offhandedly.

I weigh the last roll between my two hands. Hear the sound of Finnick's hushed voice as he counted them out minutes ago. One.. two... twelve... and then he started over again. One... two... twelve.

"Or midnight," Finnick says jokingly. I look up to examine his smile. "Same difference, right? At least, down here it is."

"No it's not," Johanna says, not paying us any real attention. "They show the dead tributes at nightfall. I haven't seen any recent programs. Peeta's right. It's probably sometime around noon."

A memory struggles to surface in my brain. I see a clock. No, it's a watch, resting in Plutarch Heavensbee's palm._"It starts at midnight," _Plutarch said. And then my mockingjay lit up briefly and vanished. In retrospect, it's like he was giving me a clue. But why would he? Unless he was in on the rescue mission. Does that mean that the rebels planned – or plan – on coming at midnight? And if so, which midnight?

I get my answer a few minutes later. We all agree we must move out; find water, another source of food. The rolls aren't enough for us, our stomachs are already cramping. As I'm retying a padding of moss onto Johanna's thigh Finnick crouches at my side. "It'll be the fourth day tomorrow."

"Yes," I say.

Finnick's voice remains low and joking. "Well, that'll be my lucky day, won't it? District Four.. day four."

I stare at him for a long time. Until Johanna says, "What are you two doing down there? Will you just hurry up!"

Finnick laughs and gives Johanna his most charming grin. "Question is, what do you want me to be doing down there?" He winked and Johanna raved, but it is Peeta's snickering that makes me smile at their playfulness.

"Odair," warned Johanna. "I'd keep that pretty mouth of yours shut if I were you."

Finnick's smile widens, eyes sparking. "So you think I have a pretty mouth."

A cry of frustration crosses Johanna's lips. "Finnick!"

"Wow," says Finnick. He looks between Peeta and I with a huge grin. "I haven't even touched her and she's screaming my name."

This time I have to hold a hand over my mouth to hide my amusement. There's so little opportunity for fun left in my life that I only move to the side and let them at it. I don't really feel like spoiling their fun. Peeta enjoys their play more than me. It's right down his alley, really. Teasing, joking, laughing. And I enjoy it more, getting to see him smile again.

In Johanna's frustration she does not seem to calculate her words well, saying, "You'll be screaming mine, you–" The hands at her side curled, her face showing she just realized what came from her mouth.

Finnick, Peeta, and I fall back against the rocks, laughing our heads off. Every time we try to stop, we look at Johanna's attempt to maintain a disdainful expression and it sets us off again. By the time we pull ourselves together, I'm thinking that maybe Finnick Odair is all right. At least now I know for sure that he is not vain or as self-important like I've thought.

Johanna is muttering and rolling her eyes by the time we move out. She takes the lead, limping slightly, an axe hanging over each shoulder. After much insisting Peeta takes the clucking Beetee from Finnick, and heads out right behind Johanna. Since she is blind, she eventually grows a little less hard and agrees to hold onto Peeta's other shoulder. Not for support, but guidance.

With them up front, Finnick and I are in the back. He has his trident ready at a moments notice and my bow is already loaded. The laughter still fresh in mind makes me feel a little less suffocated by the dark tunnels and a little more lighthearted.

Finnick's mood and smile seems vastly improved as well. Less sour, less sad.. less hopeless.

"I've known Johanna ever since she became a victor," he says. Though Peeta's procession is only five yards ahead and we are on a tense lookout for water and enemies, I don't immediately shoot down Finnick's small talk. I owe him this much, surely. "And she's never failed to threaten me. Especially the first time we met, her first year mentoring. First words out of her mouth, 'Watch yourself, Pretty Boy.'" Finnick laughs lightly, head shaking.

"She definitely has... her own sort of.."

"Charm?"

I smile at a memory. "About as charming as a dead slug, actually."

"Dead slug?" Finnick considers. "I'll have to use that sometime."

Except, after he says that, we both grow sullenly quiet. _When?_ I thought. Before she dies in this arena? That will be the only time she or he would have left. Finnick must realize this because he straightens a little and clears his throat.

Small talk is suddenly not appealing.

The tunnel ahead of us shows no sign of changing. All of it is forward, heading in some direction I would guess northeast. At an upward slope, the threat of dehydration returns harshly and we are all panting quickly. My head feels a little dizzy with the lack of substance I've received in the last three days.

Thinking of what little time all of us just might have left my eyes unavoidably fall to Peeta. There's no obvious sign of pain but I can see him limping slightly under the weight of Beetee. I would suggest him and Finnick trade places but I have to admit Finnick is a better fighter and Peeta the better defender. Other than his weariness, nothing from yesterday or today seems to have damaged him. _That's a first. _I think one thing, while heaving a great sigh of relief because of another.

The walking seems to grow harder, my limbs heavier. There is no sign of water. Not even the little drips of water or pools across the floor and ceiling from before. Eventually its more of a robotic march, following the bobbing of Peeta's head. Noting the way his hair falls over his forehead. I have an intense urge to brush it out of his face.

That's when I notice Finnick giving me a strangely quizzical look. He glances between Peeta and me, as if trying to figure something out, then gives his head a slight shake as if to clear it. "What?" I ask.

"It's just.. it must be sad," he says. "Because of the baby and all."

_He does not actually buy that, _I think. All of the victors could have seen straight through mine and Peeta's star-crossed lover ploy. To play along is my only choice. So I place a hand over my lower abdomen and say, "I would rather him live, still." There was no need to fake the wistfulness in my voice.

"Seems like you're the better half of the deal, though." Finnick shrugs, gives me a sharp look and then fidgets with the trident in his hands. People as beautiful as Finnick Odair do not fidget. "Like getting two in one. You..." he pauses significantly, ".. and the baby. Both living, thriving."

"What are you saying? That you're rooting for me?"

"No," he says. "I guess I just mean to say that I can see it from his point of view, too."

_Everyone's point of view. _All of the people rooting on Peeta as he made it clear he would get me out at every cost, some rebels, most Capitol. The baby card he played sent everyone into a frenzy. A two in one deal that implies the surviving of me, the Mockingjay, and a rebellion.

I recall the thought I had when I made my mad dash to Haymitch's house. I had wanted to outdo Peeta and I failed then, as well. And the selfless act that I thought up was in fact selfish. To leave a country who I initially sparked to fight this rebellion on their own wouldn't be helping much. Except what am I supposed to do to help? Live? Watch as I once again let Peeta outdo me and die?

But I can't let him die.

_"No one really needs me."_

_"I do. I need you."_

Three days ago I remember the feel of him intertwined with me. Those kisses. The heat of a blush across his skin. A burning ache. Suddenly, I'm sick with wanting.

Sick at the thought of losing him.

_Bang!_

The sudden cannon fire makes all of us jump.

_Who is it? _We are all wondering. All we know is that it could be the Careers. I raise my bow a little more attentively and Peeta slows pace so that they aren't but one yard out of reach. Wordlessly, we move on.

When the cold around us starts to numb our toes and fingers we pause to take a break. I'm glad, because the constant movement irritates the bites and scratches that were left behind by the bats. The claw marks along my throat tingle, and I change the bandages of moss to find it's bleeding again.

Peeta stills at the sight of me and moves to my side. I recoil and hiss when he lightly touches the skin around the wound. "It's.."

"Festering," I say, knowing by the grave look in his eyes.

Peeta nods, unable to find words.

The most either of us can do is tie a loose pad of moss around it and hope. I only need to survive long enough to protect him. Maybe when it is just me and him, the infection will save him from having to kill me himself. The thought is a somber one, but I accept his arms when he pulls me to him.

As we sit, I watch Johanna swing her axes around aimlessly. The fact that she is still blind and not complaining is a miracle to me. Though she seems to be better... a lot better. What has it been? A day since we last cleaned the wound? And for Beetee, too. The man of District 3 is actually levelheaded in expression and eyes, watching our alliance quietly.

I think of the water they used this morning to clean my scrapes.

"It'll go away, soon," I tell Peeta.

He stroke my hair, then his hand shifts to press the back of his knuckles into my forehead. "You're already warm, Katniss."

"I'll be fine, just give it a day." But I couldn't help and know that it was not the incline of our walk that left me covered in a cold sweat. "Don't tell the others."

Peeta doesn't reply, only continues stroking my hair. Finnick has started a low conversation with Beetee, and seems to be holding out a length of vine. Johanna scuffs at him, but Beetee is interested in whatever it is Finnick's saying.

Peeta leans forward and kisses the back of my neck. "What are you thinking?"

"Worried," I say. "That Finnick's planning on eating that vine. You?"

"Thinking of all the jealous men in Panem, seeing as I've the most beautiful fiance in the world," and I feel his lips again, but they don't stop in one place. They trail along my neck, down my shoulder, across the planes of my upper back that are revealed.

"Peeta," I say. I lean back further into his chest and turn my head so we are nose to nose. His eyes are blue fire, but I can see the concern in them, the worry... "I'll be fine, I promise. Johanna and Beetee both recovered."

"After going insane."

"Only a little."

Peeta moves a hand to my face, presses my cheek into his, closes his eyes. "You're too brave.. and stubborn. And.." he does not continue.

I want to laugh, because he does not seem to remember my admittance of fear recently. Instead, I turn my face and our lips lock. I close my eyes. I tell myself I'm doing it for Haymitch, for President Snow and the cameras. They'll be wondering what happened to the star-crossed lovers of District 12 and why they haven't been stealing all the screen time with their romances. The sponsors will be lapping this up, and _that's_ why I did it.

_But it doesn't have to be that way._

"Hey, love birds," Finnick's voice protrudes. "Are you so hungry you're going to eat each other's faces or do you want some _real_ food?"

We break apart, me flustered, and Peeta smiling. It turns out Finnick has recognized the vines from an arena one of his past tributes were in. He promises that those other children ate it no problem, though it seemed to have tasted better crisped by a fire. Edible still. Chewy and foul tasting, but edible.

Johanna seems the most resisting in eating it. I might have been as cautious as her, but I know now that Finnick nor Beetee would try to kill me. Not on purpose anyway. We all cave and eat the vines to our fill, too hungry to stay stubborn.

What is even better is that they are full of liquid. It doesn't taste like pure water, tinged in a sappy green slime, but it is better than nothing. I spend more time gnawing vines open and sucking out the liquid than anything.

Beetee praises Finnick on his discovery, but there is no further discussion as we eat. I find my mind wandering. My recently parched tongue licking across cracked lips. I think of Prim, for the oddest reason. I recall her in those awful days just after my father's passing. The time our mother had left us, and Prim's lips were always chapped, and her wrists had been twig thin. So small, so young. She's watching me again, going through this and I wish I was there with her, to shield her eyes.

To hide the fact that my skin felt hot and my neck is searing.

I don't want her to see... I don't ever want her to grow up, either. My heart swells for her and I'm suddenly overtaken with another longing for home. For my district, for my woods. A decent woods with sturdy hardwood trees, plentiful food, game. Rushing streams. Cool breezes. No, cold winds to blow this stifling heat away. I conjure up such a wind in my mind, letting it freeze my cheeks and numb my fingers, and all at once, I'm crying.

"Katniss?"

"What's the matter with her?"

"It's okay. It's just her hormones," says Finnick. "From the baby." I look up and see him, sitting back on his knees with a handful of vines still in his fist.

"No. It's not—" I get out, but I'm cut off by an even more hysterical round of sobbing that seems only to confirm what Finnick said about the baby. I glare through the tears. I mean to say something, but Johanna goes still, blind eyes staring at the wall.

In her hands I see her knuckles go as white as bone around the handle of her axe. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" asks Peeta.

"There's–" Then a glint of silver flashes right across Johanna's face and she cries out. Her head whips to the side, hand clutching bleeding cheek.

"Careers!" Finnick is on his feet, throws a net and Gloss goes down in a flurry. But Enorbaria cuts him free in seconds.

Johanna helps Beetee to his feet, but does not know which way to go, which way to swing her axe.

No matter how hard I try to make _my_ feet work, they won't. Peeta grasps this quickly, picks me up and wraps an arm around my waist, in a breathless whirl. My head spins. I want to vomit, but I don't want to vomit on camera. _The world is watching_, I think. Is all I can think.

The Careers around us are a commotion of noise. I can see nothing definite at first. I fight with myself, with the fever and the sickness in the back of my throat. I hear screaming. An ominous _crack _of thunder. Peeta jostling me as he runs to something.. from something...

My head lifts a little and I see a shower of black. I think of the bats. Worried suddenly, I fight with Peeta. Flailing, trying to tell him, to warn him about the bats around us. He nearly drops me. Then something collides into my head, rains like tiny stabs across my skin and I realize this wasn't the Career's doing.

The Gamemakers enrage me more than an infant enraged at being put down, helpless to change that fact. Just as helpless as I am to hold together the cave walls, as they inevitably crumble over our heads.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**

_A/N: I robbed you of the scene with the cave-in because I was getting the feeling that people were craving romance more than the action. Plus, you didn't miss much and it seems easier to write a coherent Katniss than a incoherent one. Otherwise, I hope this doesn't seen too un-cannon. I really try to keep it all believable and the original Katniss (sexual things aside). Thanks for reading, sorry for typos. Reviews make the world go around. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Seventeen<p>

The first thing I'm conscious of is the Capitol anthem pounding into my ears. There is a dry ache in my throat and my lips are cracked with blood and mud. _Mud?_ I think, remembering my first arena, _that means we've found water. _Except all I see when I open my eyes is the projection of the dead tribute's faces. Seeder comes last, and I can tell around me my alliance members are still, waiting out the thunderous silence after the storm of the anthem.

Then, I hear a strangled, hopeless groan escape one of them, and I turn my head to see Finnick with his face buried in his hands. There is a surprising amount of blood on his clothes, running from some point of his bicep that is bound by moss, but it is the look of pain on him that makes me feel anxious.

"You're awake," says Peeta. He is sitting at my side and he is filthy, hands and clothes and face covered in something that looks like coal dust. Almost in a nervous way he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hands and his lips come away looking pinker than all the rest of him.

"How long was I out?" I ask. I sit up stretching my sore limbs and wince at the pain in my joints.

"Not long," croaks Johanna.

I look to Peeta for him to deny that, because I feel like I've been out for longer, but he seems uncomfortable. "You were awake just an hour ago, but you were... not yourself."

"What did I say?" I ask, then re-prioritized my mind. "What happened? Where are the Careers?"

"On the other side of these damned tunnels thanks to the cave in," says Johanna. Her hand is patting the unmoving Finnick's back, but her eyes are intent on our conversation. "And what you said is your business, but if you ask me.. I think you'd have a cute kid."

"What?" I sputter.

"Well.." Peeta hesitated. "While I was helping carry you out of the falling rock's path, you were struggling a bit and then.. weren't. You said some things about infants, and that you were mad, at me. And.. after we got settled down again, you were trying to convince me.." He didn't finish. Didn't have to, my hands were already over my fiercely heating face, much similar to the way Finnick looks.

Peeta tries to make it better. "It actually wasn't that bad. You weren't being mean or anything.." I almost laugh, because that's what he would focus on, my niceness. _Maybe it wasn't bad for him,_I think, _he's always wanted this._

Though embarrassed and frustrated, I do feel better than I did. It was amazing how fast the fever passed. The same way it did for Johanna and Beetee, and I'm almost certain that this is because of the water. Maybe it has a unique bacteria in it that targets open skin. Or possibly I'm just trying to distract myself by thinking about my wounds, rather than what just transpired.

Beetee offers me vines and I suck on them gratefully. The taste of mud turns into bitter sap, a sacrifice to having a soothed throat. Peeta checks out my scratches and is very approving of what he finds, changing the moss and then kissing me lightly under the jaw. I try to object, recent things in mind, but he had not a word of it, squeezing my hand and smiling.

After I am in better health and have checked my inventory of two bows and arrows, Finnick comes out of his shell and glumly tells me the tale of what happened after I lost myself to the pull of fever.

There was some sort of huge crack that opened the ceiling above them, just before the fight could really get going, and it seemed like just pebbles that fell first. Until the boulders started.. though they were easier to avoid, they came across a section of cave where the rocks cascaded from the ceiling in spiked icicle-like shapes. Hence, Finnick's arm wound came from reflecting one that had been heading straight for Beetee's head. Peeta claims he saw Enorbaria take a hit from one in the leg, which might make up for Finnick's penance, but there is also Johanna who was also injured. The knife that had initially been thrown has left a pink, puckering slice across her left cheek and downward her bottom lip and chin.

"It'll leave a nice scar," says Johanna when I ask her about it.

"Oh, I can show you a few interesting scars," begins Finnick, grinning, but when no one takes his suggestive tone to heart that same smile curls up and dies. A dark sadness passes his eyes... and he ducks his head from sight.

I wonder if this is him giving up. That he's finally accepting the fact that we are eventually going have to kill each other. This seems to make me pained, because I don't really want to kill any of them. Not intelligent, doubtful Beetee. Or the gusty, badly charmed Johanna. And least of all, Finnick, our joking lighthearted tribute of District 4. Not to mention I owe him my life...

But it is the night of the third day, tomorrow is the forth and by the time midnight passes, we will all have the answers we're waiting for. Which seems so unfair, to leave us in suspense. The fact that we even get to hope for escape is a torturous pleasure, because how can we not hope? But how can we dare, too..? It is one of those things you know you want without a doubt, yet fear to be falsely promised it.

Everyone is exhausted from today's troubles, and though I only got a little sleep in their claim, I find myself wide awake, offering to take first watch. Minutes later everyone is sleeping, and Peeta is pressed against my side, black streaked blonde hair tickling my neck from where his head lays against my shoulder. I try not to jostle him as I lift the bow in my hands, loading it and pulling the arrow back as far as I can, before watching it hit the wall opposite me and ricochet off. I do that a couple more times, getting my hands and arms back into practice, while at the same time wasting idle thinking period to focus on the simple, familiar task.

Eventually the time comes when I can waste no more arrows and I can not avoid my thoughts. Even contemplating how much it was the worlds fascination when I began to discuss those things aloud because of my fevered state makes me embarrassed. At least, unlike Beetee, I had not blabbed about rebels and rescue escapes. Hopefully those blabberings of Beetee's are long forgotten in the excitement of the Games themselves. Mine however, are probably not soon neglected.

I try to understand why I would say such things. Infants and being angry at Peeta? Why would I be on that track of mind? I thought I'd just established we didn't have to fight, and the fact that I spoke of children.. it is probably because of the fake pregnancy I try to keep up with.

I am resolved on that until I feel a sudden dizziness of foreboding that passes at the shift of Johanna in her sleep. But I felt it, and I feel uncertain now, leaning a little more heavily into Peeta, eyes scanning the dark recesses of the tunnels. What was it that Johanna said? A cute kid? _Of course it would be,_ I think subconsciously, _it'll be Peeta's and I can only imagine Peeta's children as angels._

The fact that I attempted to try something with him also strikes me as peculiar. Isn't being pregnant something I've denied possibility for my whole life? The thing I dreaded most about marriage was the inevitable future; the production of children, then the loss of my children to the Games. And the next thought comes to me unbidden: If I hadn't spent my entire life building up layers of defenses until I was trained to recoil at even the suggestion of marriage or a family, would I be, on a miniscule scale, relieved – or possibly happy – to give Peeta children?

Except how can I? The only way I would have children was if the Hunger Games didn't exist, and then I would never have met Peeta. Part of me entertains the thought that the Games might have been worth that, but immediately I know I'd rather have never met him if it meant I could take away the pain of the last seventy-five years. I would do it in a heartbeat. The thing that catches me is I wonder if he would do the same, or become selfish in the face of the world, just to have me..

Which only reminds me of my guilt, the fact that he loves me without fail... unconditionally. He would be good with children. Prefect, because what more do kids need than a person as good and caring as him? Except I begin to think about that night four days ago, just before we were put in this arena, and I had broken my beliefs at the expense of a jealous possessiveness that I did not fully understand. The thought makes me feel physically ill. All those years as a child where I loathed the reapings, promising myself over and over again that I would never give a child life only for the Capitol to take it, and now I am contemplating the ifs of one slip up.

Even if that slip up goes to worse and worst, I know normally I would not give it a second thought, considering I plan on not coming from this arena. Though, normally doesn't really apply here, does it? Not if the rescue mission works out and I have to live another day.. another nine months. Suddenly, I remember one reaping a long time ago. I was a careless, perceptively honest eight year old sitting at the top of my father's shoulders. Chin resting on his ruffled black hair. Arms wrapped firmly like a strap about his chin, and palms flat against his olive-toned skin, matching to mine. My mind summoned up a pair of tributes, two Seam kids I knew from school and who were friends of the family, through my father. And I also remember them dying that following Hunger Games.. and the resulted anguish that made me sure I would never let myself be partly responsible. Because who else is responsible for the death of the children aside the Capitol? The person who provides the fresh meat for slaughtering; the parents.

In his sleep, Peeta looks half a child. There are no lines on his face, whether pained or joyous, only seamless tan skin, and experimentally I brush the hair from the side of his ear. He stirs, then his arms snake around my torso and hug it tightly. I hold my breath, let it out; tasting the scent of him in the air.

I use my fingers lightly to clean most of the dust from his skin without waking him. The process is slow going and tedious and almost not worth my time. I do it anyway, because what else is there to do but allow my thoughts to run in useless, unfamiliar circles.

And though I am determined to side-track my mind, it is derailed. I am staring at Peeta's face, trying to find a real child there. For some reason I can not let it look anything less than his twin, me in it is not really an option. At first it is male, like him, but I find femininity in his eyelashes and the curls of his hair.

She is just molding into thought when Finnick wakes with a sharp cry. His hands are clawing at the cave floor to reassures himself that whatever nightmare he inhabited wasn't real. I stare him, ridiculously abashed, as if I had been caught doing something wrong.

"I can't sleep anymore," he says. "You should get rest, I'll watch." Only I try to tell him it has not been long at all and I'm not tired. I crumble when he looks at me with those suddenly hopeless eyes. I know when I'm not welcome and someone needs their time, so I nod, turn into Peeta's warmth and lay against the moss across the floor.

I don't expect sleep to come quickly. It seems I was just asleep, so I can not really believe it when I instantly feel my eyes grow heavy. As I drift off, I try to imagine this child again. Blonde curls, golden complexion, crystalline blue eyes. Already I know that I can not picture myself with it. That is not my child. _I don't want them, _I tell myself. _I'm not motherly. _But another part of me counters, the roaring of Prim's imagine conjured into mind and my affection for her spears me in the heart. Kind of like the way I ached at the loss of Rue. Sweet, little Rue.. and I realize suddenly, in my tired, post-fevered mind, that somewhere deep inside me is a maternal heart and it is pained at the thought of a child.

Yet, still, if only one us, between Peeta and I, can be a parent, anyone can see it should be Peeta. So I put him there in my mind with that little girl. Somewhere in the future, with no Games, no Capitol. A place like the meadow in the song I sang to Rue as she died. Where Peeta's child could be safe.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

A/N: Here's this chapter. Thanks for reading, sorry for typos. Reviews are nice. -Taryn(:

* * *

><p>Chapter Eighteen<p>

When I wake, I have a brief, delicious feeling of happiness that is somehow connected with Peeta.

Happiness, of course, is a complete absurdity at this point, since at the rate things are going, I'll be dead in a day. And that's the best-care scenario, if I'm able to eliminate the rest of the field, including myself, and get Peeta crowned as the winner of the Quarter Quell. Still, the sensation's so unexpected and gratifying I cling to it, if only for a few moments. Before the rock floor, thin air, and my itching wounds demand me to return to reality.

Everyone's already up and watching the descent of a parachute. I join them for another delivery of bread. It's identical to the one we received for the past two days. Twenty-four rolls from District 4. That means tonight at midnight is the moment. I can see it in all of their faces; a distant emergence of hope and futility at the possibility of rescue. We each take three, leaving twelve in reserve. No one says it, but we know it is noon. Only twelve hours left to either confirm our lives or permanent loss of hope.

How long can we keep this alliance, if it all turns out to be false? I don't think anyone expected the number of tributes to drop so quickly. I recall my thoughts of the other day, renewing a surge of want to save Peeta. What if I am wrong about the others protecting Peeta? I know they have come here to make sure I live, but I had thought they would help Peeta because of that. What if when it came down to it, they would cut him loose, if it meant saving me first?

If things were simply coincidental, the fact that they are still delivering this bread and it's all a strategy of President Snow's to make us easy prey, what then?

Not to mention the alliance isn't really at its strongest. With Finnick's arm injured yesterday he is only able to carry trident, not net. While I like the fact that Peeta can see thanks to Seeder's glasses, Johanna is a better fighter. But if Peeta doesn't have the glasses, who would support and guide the less than capable Beetee? We can not afford to leave Peeta blind, nor Johanna.

After breakfast, I collect all the arrows I'd shot last night, to re-shoot them. Again it seems the more I shoot the more accurate and powerful my hits become. Thanks to the punch I delivered to Brutus, which now clearly was a mistake, I find I'm a little weaker with my right hand and the practice is necessary. Finnick lets out a whistle when an arrow cracks against the tunnel wall, chipping away a smooth, flat rock. I pick it up, fingers running over the thin, fragile surface of perfection. When I lean in to examine the wall, I do not find the point of breaking. The whole panel is smooth. Perplexed, I stare at it for a long time, before deciding the Gamemakers must have done something and then I tuck the stone into my fanny pack.

During my practice Johanna and Beetee used the vines that Peeta and Finnick collected to make water. They gather most of the liquid into an empty sheathe that had once been holding my arrows. Each of us take turns drinking deeply of it, glad for the actual substantial feel of it in our throats. Somehow it is more satisfying than the little dregs you get from sucking on a single vine.

For reasons beyond me, because of last night and that foggy thought of children and Peeta's children, this makes it difficult to look at him. As I sit next to Peeta on the floor in our alliance's semi-circle I find my eyes focused on my hands more than them. Maybe it is all the kissing or open touching recently, although the two of us kissing isn't anything new. And the touching bit has become almost a habit. Except I can't shake the feeling that it is somehow, perceived different now. It might not even feel any different for him, but maybe it's knowing the brief amount of time we might have left. Perhaps, it is how we're working at such a cross-purpose when it comes to who should survive these Games, that I feel almost reluctant to give him too much to hold over my head.

Finnick starts talking. "Tonight," he begins. Already a silent flare of life flutters to the surface of the faces around him. Even Peeta raises his eyes at the word. "I think we should.. I just want to say, that I was glad we could have this alliance." Those gorgeous orbs of blue and green fall onto mine, then flicker from Peeta, to Beetee, and land to stay at Johanna. "I was glad I got to.. you're all so.."

"Shut your trap," Johanna hisses. The vehemency of her voice makes all of us swing our heads around at her, and I'm surprised to note the slight tinge of pain, dented between her eyebrows, shining in her blind eyes. "Don't start all the touchy-feely crape. We'll go out of this fighting."

No one speaks for a moment, then, finally, "I agree."

Everyone looks to Beetee. It is the first time he has spoken since the spill of the rebel's plans. "We have to keep trying. Don't start giving up hope now.."

I find it a little hypocritical of him to say that, since he was the one who begged us to let him die two days beforehand. He seems better though, stronger. The blood has restored itself in his face and his dark eyes have that gleam of intelligence. "You have an idea," Peeta accuses the man. "Do you know how we can..?"

"Open," Beetee says. "We need to get out in the open."

"But how?" Finnick asks.

"There has to be some way, or else where are the bodies and parachutes coming from. And where would we have entered from to the underground launch rooms? These tunnels are more complex and deeper than we think. Meaning there has to be a point of exit and entrance."

He pauses, the silence that ensues reminds me of the listening Panem. Beetee covers, "I think we'll all agree our next job is to kill Gloss and Enorbaria. I doubt they'll attack us openly again, now that they're so outnumbered. We could track them down, I suppose, but it's dangerous, exhausting work."

"Do you think they've figured out about the change?" I ask.

"If they haven't, they're seriously misinformed. Perhaps they were not as specifically told as we were. But they must know that at least some of the mishaps that have been going on here are pointing toward the affirmative," says Beetee. "Anyway, I think our best bet will be setting a trap."

"What's your plan?" Peeta encourages.

"I must think a moment," he says and shoos us all back a bit so he can have room to work. On the floor he swiftly draws a circle and divides it into a labyrinth of lines. It's the arena, not rendered in Peeta's precise strokes but in the rough lines of a man whose mind is occupied by other, far more complex things. The lines can't be seen by anyone but him, since he only traced it with his fingers. Then again what would it matter if we saw it? Obviously the lines wouldn't mean anything to anyone but him. "If you were Gloss and Enorbaria, knowing what you do now about the tunnels, where would you feel safest?" Beetee asks. There's nothing patronizing in his voice, and yet I can't help thinking he reminds me of a schoolteacher about to ease children into a lesson. Perhaps it's the age difference, or simply that Beetee is probably a million times smarter than the rest of us.

"Where we are now. Somewhere random, undetectable," says Peeta. "It's the safest place."

_Sometimes, _I counter mentally, thinking of the bats and cave in.

"So why aren't they here?" says Beetee.

"Because we're here," says Johanna impatiently.

"Exactly. We're here, claiming this tunnel. Now where would you go?" says Beetee.

I think about the deadly underground, the occupied tunnels. "They're at the cornucopia."

"What makes you say that?"

"Peeta said Enorbaria was hit, so they'd go looking for something to help her. Though there is nothing in the cornucopia, being that close to the weapons can't hurt and they may be hoping we'll return."

"Also to eat," Finnick says. "The cornucopia is full of vines. By watching us, they know the vines are safe."

Beetee smiles at us as if we've exceeded his expectations. "Yes, good. You do see. Now here's what I propose: we lead them back to the underground water."

"That's flooded," I say.

"No. Don't you remember the water retreating? There is a precious time line, a glimpse of a chance there. The water was down at the evening, but about a handful of hours after the tribute showing, the water began to rise. Night triggers the rising, and the morning sinks it once more," says Beetee. "We lead them there, ambush them at the right moment, and with the little time we allow they'll drown."

There's a long pause while we all digest Beetee's plan. It seems a bit fantastical to me, cruel even. But that's not really what he's saying is it? I try to remember everything that happened after I went down underneath the cornucopia. The water did begin rising not long after the show of faces. There were the crystals, the island of rock, the knee-high tunnel. Not much else there aside the water. Then I remember it, stilling, _the waterfall. _The natural looking one. Beetee must have seen it, too.

I suddenly know what he wants us to do.

Could it work? I suppose it can work, if the tributes unable to swim stayed close to Finnick and I. There is a thin line though, considering if we mean to keep up out 'this is a destroy the Careers' plan, Enorbaria and Gloss must be there. Almost nothing else would work, and I think of Peeta. That I must save him above all. The whole purpose of me gritting through this, for him.

"What if we are faced with other troubles once we get there? If there is no end?" I ask Beetee. He knows I know. I can tell by the way his lips twist upward.

"Then we drown, too." No one asks what we were talking about.

Instead, Peeta says, "Who's going to be the bait to the Careers? And how are we going to find the same tunnel as before?"

"We retrace our steps back to the cornucopia. But we'll be louder than usual. Let them know we are coming, they'll hide and we must act as though we do not see them. After that Peeta can point out the right tunnel. If the Careers are smart, they'll stalk us there," says Beetee.

"How do you know?" asks Johanna, clearly not convinced.

"Because you are all going to act injured," says Beetee, as if slightly surprised she had not thought of it. "It's not going to be enough if they don't think they can take us."

"And where will we be once we ambush them? If we don't want them coming out of there, someone has to be down there beforehand, to block off the tunnel that leads back to the cornucopia," Finnick points out.

"We will discuss that once we are there," Beetee replies.

"Do you think the water rises high enough for them to follow it back up from the point that we pushed them?" asks Peeta.

"No. The trek that goes to the vertical tunnel is uphill meaning the cornucopia is at a lower elevation. The fact that the cornucopia was not filling with water means it could not have reached high enough to overflow the other entrance. Either they are unable to swim or they follow the water where we pushed them from to no end. They'll drown of exhaustion eventually, if not immediately," says Beetee. "But as we are allies and this will require all our efforts, the decision of whether or not to attempt it is up to you four."

We _are _like schoolchildren. Completely unable to dispute his theory with anything but the most elementary concerns. Most of which don't even have anything to do with his actual plan. I look at the others' disconcerted faces. It is funny how I know what he really means to do and they don't seem to understand. To prompt their agreement, I say, "Why not? If it fails, there's no harm done. If it works, there's a decent chance we'll kill them."

"I say we try it," says Peeta. "Katniss is right."

Finnick looks to Johanna and raises his eyebrows. He will not go forward without her. "All right," she says finally. "It's better than hunting them down, anyway. And I doubt they'll figure out our plan, since they don't seem to know about the water down there."

Beetee wants to leave as soon as possible. Judging by the amount of time that has passed since the parachute, it's about two in the afternoon. So we prepare ourselves for sneaking passed the cornucopia. With Finnick and I still wrapped up in blood covered moss from bat bites and rock falls, the others just wrap themselves in various different bandages, practice limps and pretend to be starving. I laugh at Finnick's moaning attempt of clutching his stomach.

Once we think that's all settled, the walk to retrace our steps to the cornucopia turns out to be a nicer one than all the others. Finnick has been brought back to life with this new hope; maybe he does not know what Beetee and I do, but he knows we have something planned. While him and Johanna walk in the front, talking, Peeta stands just behind them, laughing. Beetee's still too weak to hike the slope on his own, so I've volunteered to loan him an arm.

The thin, cold air weighs on me. Sometimes it'll be breeze-like and other times it'll just sit heavily on my shoulders, frosting my breath in the air. There's been no break from it since the Games began. I wish Haymitch would stop sending us that District 4 bread and get us some of that sweeter tasting, nutty stuff from District 11, because after all that salt, I'm craving sugar. A thermos of that orange stuff would be another good idea. Or hot chocolate. I'm grateful for the fluid from the vines, but it's the same temperature as the air and the rock floor and the other tributes and me. We're all just one big, frozen popsicle.

In fact, while he's at it, I would really appreciate a letter explaining what he's done and what the rebels are doing, and if our idea is doomed to fail. End all this nonsense of confusion, and then again, maybe it's better if I don't know, for Peeta's benefit and mine.

I start when I run into Peeta's back. My shove comes on instinct, and he staggers into Johanna, who, blindly, reaches at Finnick, and the three of them all tumble to the ground. Beetee is looking around sightless, eyebrows furrowed. "Is someone attacking?"

"No," grumbles Johanna. "The big oaf ran into me."

"I was pushed!"

"_You_ were pushed?" Finnick says, rubbing his shoulder. "I feel like an elephant seal landed on top of me. _Two_ of them."

"Shut up," I say. I was about to demand why they stopped in the first place, but already I can see it. The tunnel is blocked off. The cave in had done so much damage that from floor to ceiling there is nothing but a solid tumble of boulders. I kick over a few, but most of them are too heavy to budge. "We're going to have to go back."

"What? Why?" asks Johanna.

"The tunnel is blocked off," says Finnick.

Beetee shakes his head. "Then we must turn around and find another way. Before nightfall."

The prospect of wandering through the tunnels for the right one is not a pleasant one. The sigh that runs along our ranks is unmistakable. I find myself in the back again, bow loaded, and Peeta is walking next to me this time. My eyes, which are sweeping the tunnel before me, try not to land too directly on him. For some reason I'm still a bit off from the whole, let's have baby bit I had when fevered.

"Do you really think it'll work?" Peeta asks after a long while of walking. The others are too far ahead to overhear and I shift the bow slightly. "The plan, I mean."

"It'll work," I say. My eyes slide to him. I decide if I want him to have the best chance at surviving I need to tell him the real plan. "Do you remember the waterfall down there?"

"Yes."

"How it looked different from the other one? The rocks were uneven. Not black, either. I thought it was more.."

"Natural," says Peeta. I can see the cogs turning in his head. "That's where the water comes from, when the underground is filling. How else would the Gamemakers get the water through?" _If not from a source above ground._

"Exactly," I say.

Peeta is quiet for a long while after that. He looks from me to Beetee every once and awhile, or he fidgets with the awl hanging from his belt. In the mean time, in my boredom of simply following the others, I decide to check over my inventory. I lost the knife to the bats, but I retain a bow and two sheathes of arrows, one on me and the other over Peeta's shoulder. I still have the fanny pack, now empty except for that stone and it hangs loosely around my waist.

We don't get that far before we are stopped again by the notorious tunnels. There are three to choose from; a skinny one, a medium sized one, and another compelling one that has a faint glow of light at the end of it.

Johanna and Beetee, both blind, seem drawn to the one with light, but I distrust it greatly. Finnick agrees that the light could only be a trap, if not lead us into one. Peeta is the one who decides that the skinny one would be best, seeing as the medium sized one is heading straight away from the cornucopia and the thin one looks to curve in the right direction.

We must walk single-file, meaning I take the lead. Peeta, Johanna, and Beetee sandwiched into the middle and Finnick makes up the rear. Every time I think I hear a sound I pause for half a heartbeat, and wait. We stumble across an opening in the thinness, but there are no other options but to continue going and going and going. Just when it seems we are doomed to shuffle in the dark forever, a faint green-ish light becomes visible ahead. I stop in my tracks, because again I'm faced with a hard disliking.

"Do we turn back?" Peeta asks when everyone is silent.

"Why?" Johanna sneers. "We've been walking too long. If we go back we'll only get more lost. I say we choose a path and stick to it."

I can see the logic in what she says, but it is with hesitance that I continue forward. Each foot closer we get the brighter and greener the light grows. I'm wondering why it is green. I think of the crystals we saw below, but they had been white and blue and clear..

I feel Peeta's hand lay against my back, almost as if he can sense my turning thoughts and my troubled reluctance. The others are quiet, waiting for the first up cry to flee. I'm just hoping I'll have time to cry out something before the danger is too apparent.

Eventually the source of light becomes obvious. They are just as I thought; crystals. Embedded and hanging from the walls or ceiling, clear, white, and a strange pale green. I squint at first, until the night vision glasses make everything painful to look at. I pull them off and tuck them into my pack, but then Peeta taps me on the shoulder and asks me to hold his, and Finnick follows that example because I am the only one who has hung onto my fanny pack.

Up ahead I see a widening. "Be prepared," I breathe. I hear Peeta draw his awl and Johanna excitedly mutters something to Finnick about finally getting use her axes.

Slowly, but surely, we reach the widening to find it is a decent sized circular room, and not only is it that, it is beautiful. Just as the underground, the place is brilliant and shining and I find I hate it. In the middle of the circular section of the tunnel there is a circular fountain, full of water that is tinted green by the light. Hesitantly, I pry a hand from my bow and ghost my fingers across the surface of the water. It ripples the same as any other.

"Why is it so.. shiny?"

I look about us and notice what Finnick has. Across the ceilings and the walls hang shimmering silver weds. Their large enough to make me shudder and turn my eyes to the entrance of the tunnel that'll lead us away.

"We should move on," and no one disagrees with me.

Except that is not the last green lighted tunnel decorated with shimmering webs and a fountain that we find. In fact we come across more and more the further we walk. Some rooms are bigger than the first, or smaller, and twice now Johanna has said she felt something brush her legs when we pass through the dark.

I'm just about to lose patience with this ominously empty tunnel when I hear Johanna scream loud enough to curdle blood. I whirl around, bow raised and Peeta ducks below my range, but beside the fact that it is dark in the thin tunnel, Johanna is panicking, pointing frantically above her. Immediately I drop back my head, but the glass' range can not decipher the ceiling, it is all black.

Finnick runs into the same dilemma and grasps Johanna calmly around the shoulder. "What did you see?"

"It touched me," she says, and I see she is more furiously disgusted than scared.

"What touched you?" Beetee asks.

"It was hairy and bony. There was this _sound_ it made," says Johanna.

We all fall silent, listening. Their footsteps are for the first time not competing with my ears and I hear it almost instantly, sucking in a breath. There is something on the ceiling high above us. The noise they make is a terrible gurgling, clicking sound. As if they are just drowning in their own venom.

We are frozen, undecided. I reach out and touch Peeta's bicep, and his eyes fly to mine. _Go, _I hope my face is saying, and he seems to understand. He takes Johanna's and Beetee's hands. There is a sad, determined gleam in his eyes and I barely have time to brace myself when he kisses me, but that lasts two seconds compared to the five second burst of a sprint that takes them away.

I watch them go, hear their footsteps. Why would he leave so willingly? This seems to grow heavier and heavier the further their steps take them, until with a queasy stomach I realize, in the silence of their departure, the sounds overhead have disappeared.

"They were followed," Finnick says.

The fear of a cannon shot is the thing that makes me fling myself after them. Already a panic rises in me and I throw myself faster and faster, until I feel as though one misstep I will collapse over myself. The faster I run the louder the sounds grow; clicking, shouting, Johanna's voice.

The green light appears around a bend in the tunnel and I find myself abruptly blinded, turning my face away, fumbling to a stop. But I trip instead, and the edge of my bow slams into my gut, and Finnick stumbles over my legs.

Aching, I push myself up on my hands, dizzy, only to find my two eyes staring into anothers eight.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

**_Mini Rant_****_: Some of you have oh so cleverly noticed I slip in many original sentences and scenarios of Catching Fire. Yes. I do. I told you I would be doing that ever since the first chapter. And if you cared to notice, I also disclaim all of them before each chapter. I do this not because I'm lazy or unoriginal. I want it to be familiar. I've found in the past that the more instantly unfamiliar a story is the less people stick with it. They read fanfiction to remember the characters they loved whose original story they have finished. I'm trying to establish as much familiarity in this one because in the next two installments you will find it far different, far less familiar, and if I'm being honest, bizarre. Also I want you to know at what stage the characters friendships are by using the same stages it took in the first place. As well as in plot, I want you to understand and get a better feel of the arena. I apologize if this annoys or upsets you. There are plenty other and better stories out there for you to read. I am sorry for this rant._**

_A/N: Thank you for reading. Enjoy. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Nineteen<p>

_Mutts_. There is no doubt these spiders are Capitol bred. For a fleeting moment I think of all the spiders I've faced in my life beforehand. All those times I would squish them for Prim. Or even my mother, she would shy from the things that hang in the corner of the room. It always seemed ridiculous to me that they were healers, not afraid to face festering, purulent wounds, while a tiny arachnid frightened them.

Now, I think I could understand their fear. These mutt spiders are as tall as me, at least. Tall enough to be on top of Johanna, their pincers big enough to close around her throat. I watch almost dreamlike when Finnick's golden trident spears it off of her. But it gets back up, legs long and twitchy, pincers dripping venom.

The one sitting in front of me, strikes close to my arm, but I recoil. It _clicks, click, clicks_. Just like a wild cat, it circles me, her prey. It seems to circle me twice, in the blink of an eye, as I load my bow against the ground. One heartbeat later, we both strike at the same time, my arrow whistling through her eye before its pincers find my neck.

"Katniss!" I turn at the sound of Beetee's voice, thinking he is need of my aid, but it turns out he is safe. It is me he means to protect, hand pointing above my head. I feel a inkling of apprehension when I drop my neck back. Unlike the spider I have just killed, that was thin and skinny, all legs and head; the one hanging from a web over me is all backside. It is round and black, only a small red smear of color along a plump body about as big as child itself.

I raise my bow, but it throws itself at me. A scream tangles itself inside my throat. Warm, hairy, itchy the thing scrambles over me, and I feel my feet snap together, the wed sticky and unbreakable. I whip my head away from its fangs, but they click and drip and bubble in my face. I can _feel_ the hot breath against my neck.

No matter how hard I try to throw it off, the thing is heavier than me. I fumble for the knife in my belt, but I realize it's gone already. The web reaches my knees when I finally feel a hand touch my shoulder. One flash of silver there is a green-colored flow of liquid body substance on top of me and over my face. I push myself free of the gutted carcass, twist around to face my savior, but instead find a knife swinging down at me, slicing through the webbing around my legs.

"Don't let them get on top of you, that's how they get you. Stay near the walls, but what ever you do, don't touch their webs," Chaff says to me. It is the first time I've seen him in these Games and he looks like hell. Face battered and body starving, the bones of his neck and shoulders protruding from shallow skin, I watch him throw himself amongst my allies, slicing as he goes.

To follow his example, I get up, bow loaded. Like he suggested I stay near the walls, my back hovering away from the webs, and I shoot three spiders in one, that had been on Finnick's tail. I know every arrow must count, and they do. In the eerie light, I bring down spider after spider, targeting eyes and hearts and throats, so that each hit means a death. But still it wouldn't be enough without Finnick spearing the beasts like fish and flinging them aside. I feel pincers on my leg, down my back, before someone takes out the attacker.

I find Peeta, awl out, hacking and protecting Beetee, who is huddled, wheezing on the floor. Johanna is having a blast, swaying around the room, throwing her lethal axes. Soon the air grows heavy with strings of web, the scent of blood, and the foul stink of the spiders insides. Drawn to the my side of the room Peeta and Finnick and I position ourselves in a obtuse triangle, a few yards apart, our backs to the wall. My heart sinks as my fingers draw back my last arrow. Then I remember Peeta has a sheath, too. And he's not shooting, he's hacking away with that awl. My own knife is gone, but when a spider comes at me, I prepare myself to use the metal of my bow. Just in time Chaff throws himself forward, knife sinking into the spider's flank. The two of them roll away.

"Peeta!" I shout. "Your arrows!"

Peeta turns to see my predicament and is sliding off his sheath when it happens. A spider lunges from the ceiling at him. I have no arrow, no way to shoot. I can hear the thud of Finnick's trident finding another mark and know his weapon is occupied. Beetee and Johanna are so far away I don't even consider their help. Peeta's awl arm is disabled as he tries to remove the sheath. I throw my bow at the oncoming mutt but the creature sways on the web, evading the blow, and stays on its trajectory.

Weaponless, defenseless, I do the only thing I can think of. I run for Peeta, to knock him to the ground, to protect his body with mine, even though I know I won't make it in time. Instead, something heavy hits my feet, I reel forward, turn halfway down and bite back a shout as my shoulder jams painfully against the floor. The thing I tripped over turns out to be a spider, a small one, the size of a puppy.

Angry, because now I can see Peeta struggling underneath the body of a plump spider, I take a swipe at the dog-spider. It responds by spitting venom in my face. I roll away, skin stinging, but still it persists, coating me over. I kick at it, until finally, it lay limp, squished, twitching on the ground.

Peeta is coated in spider web to his chest. He had dropped the sheathe of arrows when jumped, so I roll toward them. Load my bow, raise it and aim for the brain. With a heave of effort Peeta shoves the thing aside, then struggles to his knees, using his awl to cut away the webbing.

With Peeta relatively safe, I turn back to the fight. The only ones that seem to be the problem are the fat ones that hang from the ceiling. Though because of the green light I can see them, every time I aim to shoot they scramble out of the way. When I do get them, they give a satisfying _crunch_ and flop onto the floor.

Finnick gets pinned at the fountain, teetering over the water. I shoot, but the spider turns its face and hisses. I don't understand until the puppy-like spider is clawing at the back of my knees, spitting venom that coats my whole body. Sputtering, wiping myself down, I find my muscles slowly refusing to bend. Finnick is still in need of help, but Johanna and Peeta are both busy. Chaff is the person who throws himself at the arachnid, whistling, one-handed knife sinking into the spiders head.

The result of that hit makes the spider throw its head back in agony. Chaff flies into the fountain and Finnick cuts himself out of the web that is tangled around his waist, and when I lurch to help Chaff, who is yet to rise out of the water, the stiffness of my limbs begins to grow into a painful throb.

"No, Katniss," Finnick says. He snatches me on my way to the fountain and I struggle with him, but he keeps saying that I do not want to see. _See what? _I think, and finally, I surge past my resisting alliance member.

What is left of Chaff is appalling, and I shake my head because is does not make sense. There is a sizzling sound, that rises softly from the water. But when I reach a hand down to touch the once clear liquid, the smell of burning flesh curdling against my nose and I jerk back as if I've touched an open flame. _Acid, _I think almost instantly, _but how? _I remember touching the fountain water beforehand and it did nothing to me.

_Throb, throb, throb. _My muscles and skin sting oddly, and I realize it is the reaction of the spider venom. _Just like the water underground, made to target open wounds, _I realize. _This one is made to target venom._

For the most part there are only a few spiders left. Chaff's cannon shot comes soon after I use my last arrow, and I feel sad. I think of Haymitch and him. Friends for the most part. The past years of their life spent getting to know and trust each other, feeling assured that the Capitol wouldn't make them come back to something like the Games. I'm slightly glad that it was not solely me who had attributed to his death; it was Finnick he was protecting at the time he fell into the water.

Beetee and Johanna are no where in sight. I am out of arrows and so I look to Peeta, and he is stabbing a spider, again and again, then another. He kicks the puppy-mutts away, bracing for more. We catch eyes, and I open my defenseless hands, stringing the bow around my back. Finnick has come to my side, to protect me from the worst, but Peeta pulls the knife from his belt, readying to give it to me.

But something has happened to the spiders. They are withdrawing, backing up on their eight legs, fading into the shadows or webs, as if some unheard voice calls them away. A Gamemaker's voice, telling them this is enough.

A green and sticky syrup, such as oozes from a crushed caterpillar, smeared us from head to foot, for every cut and kill we had delivered had brought spurts of this stuff onto us. The venom is a thicker, mucus like substance and I'm the only one covered in it, aside Finnick's lower legs. We are all breathing heavy, assessing our bodies and the dead carcasses of the arachnids.

Finnick moves first, kicking over the bodies, searching. "Jo?" he asks, tentatively. "Beetee?" A muffled shout reaches my ears. I turn to it and find a pile of wriggling web, and I call for Finnick. Peeta brings his knife first, slicing free our trapped ally. Johanna bursts out, coughing, breathing heavily, and silver strands laced through her hair.

"About time, I thought you would never get me out!" she says.

Finnick grins at her, but otherwise I search the room over with my eyes. "Where's Beetee?" I ask.

"There." Peeta points out another cocoon and sure enough he cuts free a very huffing and puffing Beetee.

As much as I want to escape this place, I find that it will be easier to take care of our ills before turning back to the dark. Finnick and Peeta still have their weapons out and ready, eyes closely watching the ceilings, but the spiders have made no move to reemerge. "Peeta," I say. "Is there any moss?"

He shakes his head. "Only webs."

I sigh, turning back to Johanna, with her throat wound made by pincers. She looks like it is no sweat, but the soft skin of your throat seems so vulnerable that I make her sit still as I lean in to examine it. I know better now than to apply the acid-water. Instead, I ask Peeta to retrieve Chaff's glasses from the pool of blood and bones, since he is the one spared of venom.

He presents the glasses to Johanna, who is happy to have them. Again, I think of Chaff and his horrible death, but I shake that away, using a strip of fabric from Johanna's shorts to wrap around her throat. "It won't help much," I tell her. "But it's better than nothing."

Finnick rejoins us, his fist full of my arrows, cleaned by the acid-water. He drops them beside me. "Thought you might want these."

"Thanks," I say. I fill my sheathes again and hand one over to Peeta.

For a few minutes we sit on the floor, numb and exhausted. Then, Beetee says it, "We must get there before midnight."

We have no choice but to pick ourselves back up and continue as if the mutt attack had never happened.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**_Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended._**

_A/N: Another A/N is at the bottom. Thanks for reading, sorry for typos. Please review. Thanks! -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Twenty<p>

For what seemed to me years of silence and walking and nothingness, we come across another fork in the path. Unlike all the times before this there is no pause to discuss the choice, I merely turn on my toes, choose not the skinny or wide tunnel, but the unremarkable medium sized one.

Somehow this one seems quieter, even if our footsteps echo back at us. I keep thinking about Chaff, because my muscles are throbbing the more I walk, and the more I walk, the more I think of Chaff. I want the venom off. But what am I to wash with?

Eventually Peeta finds moss on the walls again and presents it to us. I use some to wipe myself down, but it does not help nearly as much as I wish it would. Johanna seems content with the wrapping around her throat. I'm willing to bet that the night vision glasses helped her mood some, too. With her and Finnick happy again, it seems to brighten the atmosphere.. except the longer we walk, the more time that passes. Beetee never fails to fret over the lack of preparation time we'll get as we go along. The fact that the clock is slowly ticking away our chance of survival weighs heavy on everyone, happy or not.

I can't believe it when I see a pink glow in the distance. Peeta confirms it first, then Finnick, while Johanna seems to check the ceiling for predators. There is no other way to turn, except backward.

Silently, we march on, as if soldiers, with no other choice.

Already I'm ready to face a circular room of some sort. I am picturing some deformed mutt. Another horrible pretend haven of light and water. The pink becomes pale and bright and painful. I tuck my glasses into my fanny pack, holding baited breath. Gently, I touch one of the crystals, their aurora of pink reminds me of the sunset.

"Do you see anything?" Johanna asks me.

"Nothing." My eyes scan the few feet ahead, overlooks the abrupt end of the tunnel. I lower my bow, perplexed. "It's a dead end."

"A dead end?" Finnick inquires. He pushes past everyone and touches the walls. After searching every last inch of the wall, ceiling, and floor he turns back and nods. "I don't see anything."

We stand there for a few moments, then, shoulders slumped, we begin to turn back. I wait a moment, thinking. It seems odd. I remember the dark blue crystals, the pale green ones. Each color seemed to predict the type of danger ahead. Yet, how could pink predict dead ends? Peeta calls to me to hurry and catch up. They are some fifty yards away, but I wave them forward, I can catch up easily.

With stubbornness I turn back to the dead end. Just as Finnick surmised, it is non-penetrable. The surface is as smooth as baby skin, unmarred, aside the thin slivers and chunks of pale pink crystals embedded into its midst.

Movement. To my right. A black shadow whisking against the light of the crystals, disappearing in a flash. My arms raise my bow, jaw clenched.

"Peeta?" I ask, voice hard.

There comes no answer. I whirl, walk back toward the way they had headed, but after walking more than enough I know. They are no where to be seen. "Peeta!" I shout, daring to be loud. "Finnick? Jo?"

_Pe-eeta, _the echo repeats, _Fin-in-ick. Jo._

My feet back up to the nearest wall. I don't want anyone jumping me from behind. There. Another shadow. I bite into the side of my cheek. To catch it the next time I keep my eyes wide open, waiting. _Movement on the left._ So I turn right, releasing the arrow, but it only hits the wall across me, _cracking _against the rock.

What is it? _Am I imagining it? _"This better not be some joke," I snap. Secretly, I hope it is.

"Katniss!" I whip to my right, toward the dead end. The wall has been removed, or slid, because it is gone. I run toward it. "Katniss!" the voice repeats, familiar. "Katniss! Katniss, hurry."

They sound terrified, unsure, but the voice is distorted by the caves and distance between us. I'm hesitant to follow. Already I know this is no male voice, but not Johanna's either. Could it be Enorbaria? But no, this voice is too tortuously familiar. The light of pink crystals is everywhere, so I don't replace my glasses as I hasten toward the girl.

"Kat–" and the voice cuts into a horrifying, blood chilling scream.

I realize it is my sister's, Prim. Almost at once the panic overtakes my logical mind. I have no sense of loyalty to the alliance, no thought, nothing but a need to protect my sister. I do not even question the how of it. I am running, breathless down the passage. The freezing air burns the insides of my starving lungs, while the uneven floor underneath my feet catches at my boots. As if hands trying to pull me down, away from Prim.

"Prim!" I shout. "Prim! I'm coming." _Where is she? What are they doing to her? _Only another agonized scream answers me. _How did she get here? Why is she part of the Games? _"Prim!"

I throw myself around a bend, and my shoulder splits painful against the rock. But I am getting closer to her. Closer. Very close now. Sweat pours down my face, stinging the healing bat wounds. My shoulder is a static of pain but I refuse to lower my bow. I pant, trying to get some use out of the thin, cold air that seems empty of oxygen. Prim makes a sound–such a lost, irretrievable sound–that I can't even imagine what they have done to evoke it.

"Prim!" Rapidly at the next bend I turn, the passage turns black. That is far from reassuring and I spun around, meaning to go back into the light, but I am faced with a smooth, flat wall where once an opening sat. I throw myself at it in frustration. I can hear her voice behind it. "Prim!"

Then I hear another screech, coming from behind me. I turn, but find myself blind in the dark, and I fumble to pull on my glasses. Before I even have them on properly something in the dark reaches out to me and snatches them from my grasp. Their swipe left my hand stinging and bleeding.

I hear Gale bleating in agony somewhere over my head. My head? My eyes whip around in the dark. I stumble forward some, not knowing if I might plunge headlong into a pit. Almost immediately I trip over, falling to my knees. "Gale?" I plead.

Eventually, I crumble, hands raising to my ears and bending over at the waist. There is no way I can help, or see, or know. This is some trick, I realize now. Now that I can not hear Prim's agony, and even though Gale's screams rips me to pieces, I know that this is not something I can stop. These must be some recording or.. my painfully stinging hand makes me think of talons.

_Jabberjays._

I've never seen one before, nor heard, but I have to assume there is no way I can stop it. _It isn't real, _I tell myself, over and over again. _The same way the mutation last year weren't really the dead tributes. It's just a sadistic trick of the Gamemakers._

I hear something on my right clatter to the floor and instantly my hand reaches for it. Fingers closing around the glasses, I pull them on in the next breath. Anything to escape. I stand, but instead of being one passage, as I expected, there are five corridors diverged from this common point. I pause to listen for sounds of anything, but the silence is as everlasting as the silence of a tomb. I choose the fourth one.

Quickly, I realize I've gone the wrong way. Yet when I turn to retrace my steps, I'm faced with a solid wall. I know I had just stepped from there, walked right to where I am from the way back to the diverged corridors, but the Gamemaker's are trying to bewilder me. And it's working.

I'm utterly lost. I turn one way, turn back, find dead ends. Again and again, I run and turn and dive new ways. Sometimes I can see a distance pink light. Other times I spot some strange, ugly orange light. Often I call out for Peeta or Finnick. Even Johanna and Beetee. Were they drawn away by the jabberjays like me? Or had it been the Gamemaker's infuriating tunnel manipulation?

I am all but at the ends of my temper, when I feel the floor underneath my feet shift. I throw my hands up to grab something, anything, which turns out to be a useless defense. My fingernails claw uselessly at the walls, and I find myself landing hard against another rock floor not ten feet beneath me. The pink crystal light is back, so I remove my glasses and stand.

This tunnel is about half the size of the one above me. Tentatively I continue to walk, when another of those shadow figures swoops at my right, and instead of looking left, I turn my face to the sky. A small, crested black bird flutters noiselessly overhead. I raise my bow just as the sound of my mother's voice rings clear as a bell from its mouth. It hits the floor just as satisfyingly as the spiders. For a moment, I stare at it, wondering how they could have made the mockingjays. Then I hear something in the distance and I abandon the animal's disgusting carcass for itself.

I'm surprised to hear the next wailing voice as my own. "Katniss!" Peeta is shouting. "Katniss, please. Where are you?" His voice is so full of anguish and sorrow that I immediately divert my feet toward the sound. Somewhere to the left. The corridor isn't long, and at the end of it I can hear Peeta's voice, drawing closer.

"Peeta!" I shout, but it is drowned out by the jabberjay emitting my screams. "Peeta," I try again, futility. There is a flash of black boots and then I glimpse his face, twisting from side to side, watching shadows flutter on the walls around him. "Peeta!" This time he hears. Our eyes meet and he begins loping toward me and I pick up my run.

The Gamemakers have other plans though, and just before we reach each other the tunnel before us is cut off with a sharp, sudden, and silent movement of stone, blocking our paths. I am going too fast to stop quick enough and I slam right into the wall. My already pained shoulder livens with so much pain I stumble backward, off of my feet and cry out in equal parts agony and anger.

I can hear Peeta and the jabberjay with my voice still shouting on the other side. That is until the floor underneath me whooshes aside and with a breathless moment of falling I slam into another floor some five feet below. With a vicious, painfully-final shudder the ceiling over me slams closed again. I can no longer stand straight in this tunnel. It seems that each tunnel lower, the smaller they get. I begin to breathe heavier, not just from running but claustrophobia.

One hand clutching my aching shoulder and the other dragging my bow against the floor, I stand, stooping to keep my head below my collarbones. I only have to turn three corners before I can hear another screeching voice. This time it is a young boy, a toddler, I think. He is furious, and screaming between sobs. I can almost see fat tears rolling down his red face as he beats angry fists against the floor.

The tunnels around me are no longer mysteriously shifting behind my back. It seems as though the Gamemakers have given up on the magic of the act. In fact, I watch coolly as the walls and corridors twists and change around me. All of it seems to be herding me in a certain direction, so I pull my bow back up, loading it with effort. If I am wanting to shoot properly, I will have to drop to my knees first.

Another voice adds to the toddlers. A woman, shrill and piercing with each wail. None of them say anything, and I hear no one shouting uselessly back at them, so I assume this someone has figured out what is going on and have shunned the jabberjays.

There is a bird fluttering at my back, but I shoot it before the voice it carries with it can be revealed. Another one comes, then two more. Soon I am shooting, retrieving my arrows, and shooting without pause. A male voice adds itself to the chorus of screams I do not recognize. Once I am almost about to give up on my useless effort to kill every bird that comes at me, I turn at the sounds of footsteps in a passage to my right. A bird emitting the voice of the toddlers swoops past my face. Johanna running at full speed, comes after it, and just as I throw my hands up to receive her blow, the floor drops away underneath both of us.

The next fall is not painful. Wince worthy, as I rub at my shoulders yet only a few two feet. Johanna sits up immediately, face livid, ready to choke something. "I swear to the odds I almost had that bird! I would have enjoyed killing it," she snarls.

Briefly, for the most fleeting second, I recall all those voices. The ones that have driven Johanna into such a fit of rage. Who were they? Family? Friends? I know better than to ask.

We both look about ourselves. The cave is only three feet high, barley enough room for us to slouch as we sit. Without word, I roll onto my stomach, choose to take a left and begin to crawl. Johanna follows.

"Where are the others?" she spits.

"I saw Peeta, but the Gamemakers cut us off," I tell her, and there is a pang in my chest, remembering his distressed face as he reached for me. "The others I haven't seen once."

"I hear Finnick." And we both stall, breaths held. Yes, I hear Finnick, too. "The right," Johanna says and the next right we see is the one we take. But soon I hear it to the left, and we turn that way, then another right. Eventually, I realize following my ears is not the best means of direction.

"Finnick!" I begin screaming. I am hoping my voice is enough to pull him away from the jabberjays. Presently I hear another woman's voice screaming. Not someone I know. "Who is it?" I breathe.

"Annie Cresta," Johanna says.

"Who?" I ask.

"Annie Cresta. She was the girl Mags volunteered for. She won about five years ago," Johanna grumbles, biting off her words as if this is a waste of time. "He's loved her forever."

That would have been the summer after my father died, when I first began feeding my family, when my whole being was occupied with battling starvation. I don't remember those Games much, but I know better than to tell Johanna that. She'd probably laugh at how relieving that must have been to me. Instead, I say, "She didn't look too stable during the reaping this year."

"No," Johanna agrees, gravely. There is no further comment, no need for one by the tone of her voice. _So that's who Finnick loves,_ I can't help thinking. _Not his string of fancy lovers in the Capitol. But a poor, mad girl back home._

The closer we seem to get to him, the further he really is. Gamemakers must not want us to meet if this is how the tunnels lead us. Slowly, our own hauntings find us. Prim, Gale, even sweet little Posy. My mother is to be expected. Even the rest of the Hawthornes; Rory, Rick, Mrs. Hawthorne. I think I can out crawl them at first, but that seems just as useless as shouting or shooting them.

Johanna has stopped crawling, shouting curses. She refuses to give up her fight, I see, when I turn around onto my back, then sit hunched upward. "I know they aren't real!" she screams. "They're dead! Don't you remember? You killed them! This doesn't do _anything_!" Except I know that is lie, because the more the male and female and toddler screams, the more she does, too.

Eventually I can take no more of it. I flee what I can't fight. What can only do me harm. Only this time it's my heart and not my body that's being hurt. That's how I know that the pink represents love. The ones you love, used against you in the worst way possible.

And then I hear it.

I hadn't picked it out against all those other cries at first. But it's there, it's stronger than the rest. I whip around so fast, my neck sends a twinge of pain down my spine. Johanna flinches in her state, her eyes peeking out and widening in horror at to what she's hearing.

It's not a voice, but a wailing and crying infant.

It's the mutts, it's not anyone. I look to her, questioning. Was there an infant to add to her mix of family and friends and that toddler? But I can see no epiphany of recognition in her face. What was President Snow trying to do? I repeated over and over, logically, that it's impossible for him to know how sensitively insecure I am about that one slip up with Peeta leading to my worst nightmare. Then it occurs to me that he could have seen the act. There is no telling what means of security are within the tribute's rooms. My cheeks pale and flush in the same instant; outraged, embarrassed, violated. But it is a useless string of emotions. Because even as I stared at the bird that emitted those awful, screeching infantile sounds, I don't know whether that is true or not. Or even if I should care, considering the rate our escape plan is going...

Johanna has lost. Even before we flee far, she is curled up against the floor, hands against her ears as if she is hoping to crush her skull. I grab her arm, try to pry it away from her face. I'm reluctant to leave her, because just a foot of distance between us means I'll be alone again in these strange pink lit tunnels. She refuses to move, so I give up, too. I harden myself to the screams. I draw away from reality so I can hide in the safe, soundless world of unfeeling inside me.

Somehow, between curling into the wall and burying my face into my knees, Johanna's hand finds mine, and her fingernails bite painfully into my knuckles.

It is almost too easy to slip away. The sounds are still painful to hear, clawing at my mind, but the shell I layer around myself is so easy to build I wonder how long it has been gone, when I shed it, why.. All I know is that it is back again, harder and colder than ever.

There is a tug on my arm, connected to Johanna and I lurch to the side. I realize instantly that the floor has opened up beneath my ally. Those wide brown eyes stare up at me, her face pink in the iridescent light. "Don't let go!" she snarls. And I clasp her hand with my other, steeling my knees against the tunnel floor.

"I can't hold long," I shout above our loved-ones screaming. She's slipping. Beneath her isn't a foot or two of distance, this time all I can see is blackness. Unyielding against the brightness of the crystals above us. The jabberjays flutter out and around us, taunting us with black wings and gleaming eyes.

The floor underneath me falls open as well, and I lose Johanna's hand in my flail to keep hold my bow. My glasses are already in the pack, so I only desperately try to keep at least a few arrows in the quiver, as I twist awkwardly in open air. I brace myself for a hard landing.

I gasp at the smack of water against my face and then choke on the liquid. My chest heaves with the panic and shock, but immediately with one hand I struggle to the surface for air. Skin stinging, I twist around, my eyes spotting Johanna flailing in the water some ten feet away. I stroke my way to her with one hand and she grabs onto my shoulder. There is an awkward struggle for us to get onto land, just as last time Johanna does not seem to be the calmest of swimmers. I gripe about it once we get on land, wringing out my shirt. "Can you see anything below your feet?" she retorts sharply, running a hand through dripping hair. "There's no telling what's in there, ready to pull you under."

I want to laugh, because I recall what Peeta said about the fish biting him. I have a picture of him in my mind, flailing as she does because of the same worries. But the smile on my lips never so much as begins. I can only think that we got separated.

"We're back," Johanna says.

I look at her, then follow her eyes to the area around us. I can't believe it. The same beautiful dark blue crystals as before are etched into the walls, and the knee-high tunnel sits at our backs. I turn to see the natural waterfall, feeling a small twinge of contentment to know it is still there.

A silent, empty-satisfaction rolls over us. It seems to last a moment, before the remembrance of the jabberjays tugs at our minds. Johanna starts pacing the edge of the water. She is furious. "They were just jabberjays. They're playing a trick on us. They weren't real. It's not..." I say, numbly.

"No, it wasn't them," Johanna agrees. There is a malice seeping through her words that cuts like a knife against melted butter. "But the voice was theirs. Jabberjays mimic what they hear. Where did they get those screams, Katniss?"

I can feel my own cheeks grow pale as I understand her meaning. "Oh, you don't think they..."

"Yes. I do. That's exactly what I think," she says.

"But you said.. those people.. you were yelling they were already dead..?"

Johanna reels around at me, arms crossed over her chest. "Yeah, so what? That doesn't mean they haven't been saving the tapes of their last dying screams for something just like this!"

I have an image of Prim in a white room, strapped to a table, while masked, robed figures elicit those sounds from her. Somewhere they are torturing her, or did torture her, to get those sounds. My knees turn to water and I sink to the ground.

_She's probably dead._

Inside me I feel something tugging loose. A piece of my sanity. I want to cry, grieve, but instead I am overtaken with such a furious need to scream and reap revenge that throwing my fists at the ground doesn't seem good enough. Blood trickles from between my fingers. That's when I remember the jabberjays talons ripping open my hand. And now there is water in it..

"Johanna," I say, voice hollow to my ears, but dark in another sense. "Do you still have your glasses?"

"Yes. I kept them in my bra, useful son of a bitch that it is."

"Good."

In the moment of silence that follows I try to control my wave of emotion. I want to be angry and sad. I want to be in denial or crippled on the floor, but I know I still have a dying wish to fulfill. The Capitol is pulling all the stops now? Then I have no choice but to retaliate.

"Why?" Johanna asks.

"Don't put them on. We're going to the cornucopia..." _as the bait._

Johanna apprehends the plan instantly. She touches the bandage around her throat. "You think they'll be there? Pretty Boy and Lover Boy? Volts, too?"

"They know the plan. If they're still alive they'll head there," I say. I realize that sounds a little heartless when I see a moments uncertainty on her face, but she is stone cold the same moment she realizes I've become the Career tribute.

"Then let's get this over with."

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><p><strong>AN: I want to say these things;**

**1) I do not know if the jabberjays can speak words since in Catching Fire they only did screaming, but I'm counting on the advance technology finding that loophole. As well as I want to say that there is no mention of Johanna's family or friends or strict past, but I am making it up. No. The toddler is not her son. (Seesh. She may be brash but not a whore.)**

**2) The water fever starts slow and comes full blast after about one-three hours. It lasts about a day though not the strong fevered state, only the dull side effects remain after the worst; wandering thoughts, hazy choice making, physical weakness. The worse physical state one is in, the longer the effects last. Do the math.**

**3) Concerning Katniss and her slowly developing emotional state as well as this one step backward she's taken. Make that a leap, actually. She's become open unconsciously to Peeta and the others as a result of him. Thus far, she never (or maybe denied) to acknowledge such a thing. Maybe she did not truly believe she had. The point is, in the face of Katniss believing Prim severely hurt, probably dead, she goes to extremes. Meaning there is one goal she is set on completing; making sure Peeta gets out. Otherwise, she could care less. Because you know, grief. As well as the walls she threw up thus far because of it. Peeta and Beetee weren't there like last time to reassure her. Even Johanna, who helped last time, is too outraged and blinded by her own pain to help Katniss. For now, Katniss is a little blinded by the fact that she believes the Capitol has pulled all the stops. So in return she thinks she must retaliate.**

**4) Basically, Johanna and Katniss make the perfect pair. Because while one gets uncertain the other is angry, which only fuels the other to get angry, and then the opposite to grow uncertain. From there they are basically building each other's fires.**

**5) The baby trip President Snow pulled was because he's a real bastard. Is Katniss pregnant? I don't know. Katniss doesn't know. You don't know. How could Snow know? It is a ridiculously, disgusting concept, but not an impossible one. Say while she was making water, the Gamemakers did their fancy trick? Say that since they have advanced medicine, they were able to check if the thought is true, even when considering the sex only happened four days ago. Hmm.. an interesting concept. But who said President Snow even cared? Or if he actually took interest in the fact that the two had sex? Eh. Who am I to know.**

**Thanks for reading. -Taryn**


	21. Chapter Twentyone

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: Tada! I'm actually a little disappointed in this, but I've been working on it too long already. Hope you like it. Thanks for reading. Typos are bad. Reviews are nice. -Taryn(:_

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><p>Chapter Twenty-One<p>

"Put your arm around my shoulders," I advise Johanna loudly once we stumble into the cornucopia. Already we had made plenty of noise crawling up the knee-high tunnel. Johanna is so eager to show weakness she collapses into my side, nearly pulling me to the floor. "Watch it!"

"Oh, sorry, Your Highness. Let me just piece together my broken leg all myself. How could I have been so rude?" Johanna sneers.

I narrow my eyes at her, but say nothing. We limp our way toward the golden horn both of us alert. To the far right of the dome-like room I hear a faint _whisking_ sound. The Careers? Mutts? Who else could it be? There really isn't anyone else. Only the Careers and our futile alliance keening for rescue.

The steps to the cornucopia seems like a hard task to drag Johanna up so I drop her to the floor at the very bottom. "Wait there, and keep watch. I'm going to get a new bow and some arrows."

"To replace the one you lost," she mumbles.

I want nothing more than to throw myself up the stairs two at a time, but the platform is much bigger than that, especially if I want to appear weak. I take my leisure time getting to the top, then make a point of showing fatigue when pulling free a golden bow and a quiver of arrows. I merely slide down the steps to reach Johanna's side again.

"Are they here?" she whispers to me.

"I think," I answer.

"Which tunnel is the right one?"

_Peeta knew, _I think. My eyes trace over the side tunnels with numb and determined eyes. Every time I try to recall the right one from the beginnings of these Games I cannot. My mind wanders away from the task at hand. _Cinna_, that's all I can remember from the beginning of these Hunger Games. And thoughts of Cinna bring me back to Prim. _My innocent, pure Prim. _My mother. Gale. Madge. I think of them taken into custody by Thread. Being punished as Cinna was. As Darius was. Punished because of me. Everybody I've ever cared about.. and then I think of Peeta, somewhere in these tunnels, ripped away from me. _What are they doing to him? Who else am I unable to protect? _I might not be able to protect or save all my other family members and my friends, but I can save Peeta. If there is still something left to save.

I want to cry at the frustration of it. But I know I must be strong. This is what President Snow wants. My breakdown and my death. Well he won't get it without cost. "That one," I say, voice thick. I pull Johanna's arm back around my shoulders and hobble our way toward a tunnel that seems vaguely familiar.

If the Careers are actually the ones I thought I heard then they will follow. Else, they're idiots. They clearly hid because they assumed that mine and Johanna's voice entitled a huge alliance, bigger than theirs. But as obvious to them her and I showed up alone, weak and vulnerable. Perhaps they are cautious of a trick. Or maybe they are hoping the rest of our alliance is in similar shape and they are anticipating we will lead them to the right place. That could be true, as far as I know, but at least I'm sure we have something against them that they will not be expecting.

Johanna tries to put on her glasses some ten minutes into our walk. "No," I say. "They could be stalking us. Don't tip them off." Grumbling, she tucks it away.

My bruised and battered shoulder starts to ache underneath the strain of Johanna's weight. I tell her to switch sides but that proves to only irritate my festering hand. Already Johanna is itching her neck, gnashing her teeth in irritation. "Don't scratch," I tell her, wanting badly to scratch myself. But I know it's the advice my mother would give. "You'll only help the infection."

"Do you think they'll really be there?" Johanna whispers. Her doubt is seeping through her wavering strength. I can feel it myself, gnawing at the lining of plans inside my mind. We both want to believe it, but for all we know we're soon to be delirious, walking alone down a dark corridor, being followed by the Careers.

A feeling of departure rolls over me, but I bite it off. I'm not one for goodbyes. I'll fight this to the end, before I even accept my time is near. Or maybe I've already accepted it.. that's why I'm so calm. Or am I?

_Will they let anyone survive? _I find myself thinking. _Will there be a victor of the Seventy-fifth Hunger Games?_ Maybe not. After all, what is this Quarter Quell but...what was it President Snow read from the card?

"_...a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol..."_

Not even the strongest of the strong will triumph. Ravage all hope. A ploy to swipe every last drop of mercy they have ever given us. Which is fairly insubstantial to start with. What was a handful of ill-minded, substance-addicted victors really? _Not much_, I think. I've never thought of them very expansively in my lifetime. I recall a person, a girl from the Seam, from two years ago. Scowling in disgust at the thought of these people, who I thought murderess, heartless, and cowards that suckled at the chance for fame and fortune.

Now, I'm raffling them–myself among their numbers–up as some form of mercy from the Capitol. One of twenty-four that survives. A person who gets to live; that they _let _live. It's not, and will never be, that simple. And with my sister.. my whole family, all those voices I heard from those jabberjays, all of them fresh in mind I'm unable to hold back a surge of great despair.

Perhaps they never intended to have a victor in these Games at all. Or perhaps the rescue mission forced their hand into such a conclusion. If it weren't for those people who made out to save me from this Hunger Game, would I be confident in the thought that Prim went untouched? That my mother and Gale and even Haymitch has survived this onslaught of proving that the government could not be made a fool of?

_I'm sorry, Peeta, _I will for him to know. _I'm sorry I couldn't save you. _Save him? More likely I stole his last chance at life, condemned him, by those berries. Maybe, if we had all played by the rules, they might have let him win. Let us taste that sliver of mercy one last time. Yet, no. There was the failed rescue mission. Our attempt to still go through with it.

"Did you hear that?" Johanna's voice protrudes on my thoughts. I lift my eyes that have been glued on the floor and look about us in our gloom. "Listen."

I listen. At first there is nothing but I soon hear the sound of footsteps behind us. The Careers, readying to end us. "Should we run?" I ask.

Johanna shakes her head and pulls away. I don't try to stop her when she pulls on her glasses. "I don't believe it," she says. At the sound of that I turn around on my toes and ready a bow. I won't go out without a fight. Except almost instantly I see what she had and my cracked lips tug at the corners.

Our alliance, most slouching and Beetee leaning heavily into Finnick, stumbles behind us. All of them are watching us and it's Peeta who breaks from the line first, running at me. I brace myself when he throws his arms around me. "Katniss," he laughs in relief, and hugs me tightly.

It takes me a moment to warm up to him. A numbing sigh escapes me and I allow him to pull me against a nearby wall, slowly sinking to the floor. "How did you find us?" I ask.

"I heard your voice," he confesses. "And we followed it to the cornucopia."

"She was talking loud enough," says Johanna.

I know I should be overjoyed. We're together again. We can be a strong alliance once more. Someone will watch over us as we fall helpless to infection. But I can't help and think of what conclusion I'd reached moments ago. The same emotions of loss and hopelessness and despair return. My eyes squeeze shut, willing away tears, and my muscles go too rigid to release. My walls are crumbling to pieces in the face of reality. Our alliance won't last long. The Gamemakers will make sure of it.

Peeta holds me on his lap, speaking soothing words, rocking me gently. It takes a long time before I begin to relax the iron grip on my body. And when I do, the trembling begins. "It's all right, Katniss," he whispers.

"No," I answer. He strokes my hair, a thumb running the length of my jaw to tuck underneath my chin and turn my face to his. I rip my face from his hand. All those times of us beforehand rush back. What I've done to him is unfair. Mistakes, most of them, and then the most recent one that could be worst of all. "We're going to die here, aren't we?"

"Who said that?" he asks.

"Snow," I say, uncaring of the cameras, the listening ears. I've never been afraid to be honest.

Peeta mauls that over and finally he says, "You don't really believe that. Are you.. was it the jabberjays that got to you?"

"I heard Prim," I tell him. "It was her. Somewhere. The jabberjays just recorded it."

"No, that's what they want you to think. The same way I wondered if Glimmer's eyes were in that mutt last year. But those weren't Glimmer's eyes. And that wasn't Prim's voice. Or if it was, they took it from an interview or something and distorted the sound. Made it say whatever she was saying," he says.

"No, they were torturing her," I answer. "She's probably dead."

"Katniss, Prim isn't dead. How could they kill Prim? We're already past the final eight of us. And what happens then?" Peeta says.

"Seven more of us die," I say hopelessly.

"No, back home. What happens when they reach the final eight tributes in the Games?" He lifts my chin so I have to look at him. Forces me to make eye contact. "What happens? At the final eight?"

I know he's trying to help me, so I make myself think. "At the final eight?" I repeat. "They interview your family and friends back home."

"That's right," says Peeta. "They interview your family and friends. And doesn't it make sense that they've just used their voices to make those distorted screams?"

"Yes?" I ask, still unsure. "But.. Johanna's family is dead and she heard their voices."

"Johanna won the Hunger Games before and made it past the final eight. They've got all of the voices they need from before this. Even yours. The one they used against me. Have you ever screamed like the jabberjays showed you doing?"

"No." I want to believe him. Badly. It's just...those voices...

"No," he agrees. "It was a trick, Katniss. A horrible one. But we're the only ones who can be hurt by it. We're the ones in the Games. Not them."

"You really believe that?" I say.

"I really do," says Peeta. I waver, thinking of how Peeta can make anyone believe anything. I look over at Johanna for confirmation, see she's fixated on Peeta, his words.

"Do you believe it, Johanna?" I ask.

"It could be true. I don't know," she says. "Could they do that, Volts? Take someone's regular voice and make it..."

"Oh, yes. It's not even that difficult, Johanna. Our children learn a similar technique in school," croaks Beetee from the place on the floor where Finnick set him.

"Peeta gave me the same speech," says Finnick. I look to him, seeing his waned face and he gives me a small tug of his lips. "I believe it."

For a long while our alliance sits on the floor too exhausted to even move. That is until Johanna and Finnick start to collect vines to make water, and the spent Beetee lays out against the cold rock floor with his eyes closed. I feel something restless stir in my chest, too, to do something but I stay in Peeta's arms, still too shaken to move.

I can't bring it in myself to break away from their warmth.

"Who did they use against Johanna?" he asks.

"A few people, I think her parents. And a toddler," I say.

He takes a moment to answer. "It must have been her brother."

"Brother?"

"I remember her Game. It was only a couple years ago and plus we reviewed it just before the Quarter Quell, and in her family's interview she had a little brother named Jordan."

Losing them must have hurt. I wonder what she meant when she yelled they had killed them, meaning the Capitol. Had she been more disobedient to President Snow than I've thought? More than just this present time rescue plan? _Whatever she did, _I think, _she doesn't seem to regret it._

We sit there for a minute and I keep hearing in the back of my mind that infants wailing. It's more disturbing than painful, but when I think of the reason for it, the why begins to tug at my thoughts. Without knowing it, not until Peeta's fingers are wiping them away, I've got tears streaming down my cheeks.

"Shh," Peeta hushes. "It's over. I promise. I won't let that happen ever again."

"You...you didn't hear _her_, Peeta," I whisper, my eyes seeking out his. "It was meant to be..."

Peeta is confused. "Who?"

I try to recall the fuzzy picture of the little girl. His little girl that my fevered mind built into the lining of my memory. Of course Peeta wouldn't know. I shouldn't have even brought it up. Furiously I wipe away the tears that continue to come, but when Peeta snatches my hand from my cheek I stiffen.

"What happened?" he asks. The ugly red and yellowing claw marks running over my knuckles and palm hangs in the space between us. Before I can answer he's already got another hand feeling my brow. "You're warm."

"I'll be fine, it's just like last time," I say. I've still got a clear head, so I'm not worried. "We were dropped back into the underground spring before we climbed to the cornucopia."

He frowns at me worriedly. Peeta doesn't talk much for awhile, clasping my hand into one of his and pulling me close into his chest so that my head is tucked underneath his chin. Then quietly, "Who is _her_, Katniss?"

I don't want to answer. I shake my head. All I want to do is forget. That screeching infant. Prim's shrill cries of agony. The fact that I feel as though another cave in would happen in a moments notice, just like what happened to my father. My hand is throbbing painfully.

"_Her_," I say. My voice is muffled against his chest. "Our" –the word is hard to get out, sticking to my throat– "little girl."

It takes a moment for what I mean to come across Peeta and almost instantly, when he gets it, I feel him shift underneath me. Would he know what I'm fearing? That our mistake could have led to more? Maybe he wasn't lying when he said that in his interview I was pregnant. But then I realize, _does he think I'm just appealing to the cameras right now? By mentioning the fake pregnant claims does Peeta think me only playing for sponsor sympathy? _"I'm sorry you had to hear it," he says.

I get a hold of the tears before I pull back to look at his face. "All I can think is that we've lost already."

He shakes his head. "Don't think about it. We're still in for the win." He pauses and nuzzles his face into my neck, lips damp against my ear. "We'll get to the rebels. They'll get us out of here. There's still some hours before midnight, surely."

One of his hand slips onto my stomach and begins to trace images. At first it tickled and annoyed me, so I tried to shake it off, but then I became entranced. The strokes are calming and I lay back in his lap, my head resting into his shoulder as I watch his fingertips. I feel what he's drawing more than see; a star, a cloud, a handful of hearts, rainbows, intertwining vines, flowers.

Focusing so hard on what he's tracing, I start to forget the jabberjays mimicry or the hopeless, closed-in feel these caves give me, and instead all my thoughts slow, go out the window, until there's nothing but the pictures. My eyes close, no longer needing to watch.

Minutes later, I open them again, because he's tracing a new shape I didn't quite catch. His eyes meet mine the second I can see, and he's asking me silently. _Do you know what it is? _I stare at him, look down at his fingers and watch him retrace it three times.

Suddenly, I'm smiling. "A loaf of bread."

Peeta nods. Before he has anything to say, I swoop forward the few inches between our faces and capture his lips into mine. Should I really be doing this? I know probably not. It's not going to help me say goodbye. It's not really what I should want from Peeta; my friend, and only pretend lover. We _did_ become lovers, I remind myself. Once.

"So we're agreed then?" Finnick says loudly, breaking us apart. I turn to see him and the rest of the alliance huddled in their own semi-circle with a few vines. "We're still in this for the fight?"

"Yes," I say.

"But we only have maybe two hours, less probably," says Beetee. He chews thoughtfully on the end of his vine and looks to Peeta. "We can retrace our steps to the cornucopia and find the right tunnel. Do you still remember which one it is?"

Peeta smiles. "That's what I'm useful for. Remembering scenery."

That quick, our alliance sparks themselves anew. We all take a few vines to chew and suck on as we walk. Even the smallest amount of water gives me a little more energy. Still, Finnick holds close to Johanna and Peeta never so much as lifts his hands from my body. There is only so much time our heads will remain level and our limbs fully controlled.

Even the anthem begins and we don't pause to watch the face of Chaff flashing against the rock wall. Instead, I take the moment to overlook our supplies and my alliance members. Johanna, Finnick, Peeta, and I still possess our night vision glasses so only Beetee is a problem on that scale, while weapon wise only Johanna needs to grab an axe at the cornucopia.

True to his word, Peeta knows which tunnel is the right one and we hasten down it. We don't talk nor acknowledge the fact that we need the Careers, we are relying solely on the fact that our plan takes the Gamemakers by surprise, seeing as they do not know we think anything of the natural waterfall. Or maybe they know. We will try anyway.

The more the time passes the more anxious we grow. I know I feel a little antsy. _What if the water is already rising? Has already risen? If we are too late.. what then? _But I muzzle these thoughts, locking that pessimistic piece of myself away from everyone else.

"We must act quickly," wheezes Beetee. _Before the Capitol can puzzle out what we truly mean to do._ The end of the tunnel is in sight. "Finnick first, because he is the strongest swimmer." No one argues. Moments after we reach the pit that leads to the underground water I can see that the water hasn't risen yet, but it's only a matter of minutes.

Finnick takes the glasses off his face and hands them to me. I tuck them into the fanny pack around my waist. He throws the net he had against the nearby wall, but keeps a clenched fist around his trident. "Keep the prongs pointing away from you," I advise. He gives me a wide smile and nods.

Beetee turns to us. "Finnick when you get down there wait for me and lead me to a wall, where I can pull myself through the water. This way your trident arm is not occupied. The same goes for Johanna, she will be third. Help her to the wall. With the light of the crystals we will not even need glasses." With that Johanna steps up to me and hands me her glasses.

"Well then, jump Pretty Boy," Johanna says. Clearly she isn't enthused about being blind again.

Finnick gives us all a glance, though he can't see, then gracefully leaps into the abyss, diving. That doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Then again, what do I know of swimming? Instead, we wait a minute or two in dragging silence. "Katniss, Peeta. You two are last. Katniss is a good enough swimmer to help you to the wall since Finnick has his hands full with us to start. Katniss first, then Peeta. Give her time to right herself before you jump," Beetee says. Peeta acknowledges what he's said and we watch the man of District 3 jump halfheartedly to the below.

"Guess it's my turn then," say Johanna when the painstaking seconds reach a minute. "See you below." She jumps heedlessly over the edge, curling her knees to her chest, and her head tucking close to her shoulders.

We wait. Peeta still has a hand on my side and with it he turns me to him. "Katniss," he starts.

"Don't."

"I love you."

I turn my face away to the plunge at our right. "I know."

"I don't want you to forget that. Especially when it comes to a moment it'll matter. I want you to remember that I can't go on living if you're gone. That it means more for you to live than me.." Peeta pulls the chain with the gold disk from around his neck. He holds it in the air so I can clearly see the mockingjay. Then his thumb slides along a catch I didn't notice before and the disk pops open. It's not solid, as I had thought, but a locket. And within the locket are photos. On the right side, my mother and Prim, laughing. And on the left, Gale. Actually smiling.

There is nothing in the world that could break me faster at this moment than these three faces. After what I heard this afternoon. It is the perfect weapon.

"Your family needs you, Katniss," Peeta says. He touches the mockingjay pin on my shirt. _The country needs you, too, _I can almost hear him telling me. He knows. Or at least he's guessed enough to know what the mockingjay represents.

Slowly, silently the tears start to fall again. There is no Finnick here to blame hormones. No reasons I can think of to explain it. I don't even know why.

"What?" Peeta whispers, eyes scanning my face. "What's the matter?" _Nothing. _I want to say that, but instead he reaches for my face and winces at the heat he feels there.

He puts the chain with the locket around my neck, then rests his hand against the side of my face. It is such a tender, heartfelt action that I want to turn my head away again. The weakness I have been feeling for the past few hours since the jabberjays makes me feel young again.

"I love you, Katniss," Peeta murmurs. There is another immeasurable moment where he stares at me, then he traces softly the shape of a heart on my cheek. Immediately I find the strength to turn my face away. Doesn't he know that I know? _Don't you think I know!_ I want to snap.

Instead I feel queasy and fevered and uncertain. My lips part without my permission, and draw in the breath against my will. And just before I say it, before the words, _you, too _slip from me, a movement of shadows catches my eyes and Peeta cries out.

The knife is sunk into his forearm and my hands fly to it, but he pushes them away, pulls me behind his back, just as Enorbaria throws herself out of the shadows straight at me. Peeta rams into her with a shoulder and she stumbles right over the edge of the crater. "Gloss!" she shouts as she falls.

I see Gloss first, slinking along the side of the tunnel. In his hands he has a sword. Already I can see the blood staining scarlet down the side of Peeta's arm. Either I stand back and let Peeta fight Gloss..or...

With a painstaking indecision I take ahold Peeta's shoulders from behind and swing him around, right over the edge of the vertical tunnel. He tries to grab my hand, nearly throwing me in after him, but his fingers slip through mine like greasy.

My bow is still hanging on my back. An arm gets tangled into the string when I try to pull it off. Hands shaking I try to load my weapon, but too late. Gloss is already on me. In an instant I brace my feet, turning the golden bow in my hands, the string towards my body as the other side acts as my barrier.

The blade and gold give a squeal on contact. A bright white spark of light bouncing from the screeching metals. I stagger underneath the force of the blow, my hands stinging because of the surge of District 1's strength behind it.

Our weapons are crossed and he leans into the sword heavily, my arms shaking with the weight to keep my bow up, the blade of his weapons away from my chest. His face is so close to mine that I can see his teeth baring at me. Gloss tries to throw all his weight at me. My muscles are screaming for release. I refuse to back down. Were locked against each other.

Trying as much as he can, Gloss can't break the bow to get to me. With a cry of frustration he rips the sword back for a new vicious swing. My chance. I throw myself at him, using the metal of my bow to deflect the sword and catch his chin. I'm not nearly heavy enough to throw a grown man over, but I use his weight against him, tangling my foot around his. The two steps he takes to get away from me causes him to spin to find the right footing. Except he spins the wrong way. Gloss' foot and mine fall into open air, and the two us lurch into the abyss.

In the shock of the misstep Gloss' hands fly out to grab onto something, and his sword goes flying, landing somewhere above while his weight and mine drags us down. My bow already gone, we are both weaponless. And Gloss decides to use his hands, wrapping them around my throat.

Falling, my head throbbing and my injured hand feeling dead, I only have one hand to claw weakly at his eyes and cheeks. He screams, I'm choking. The less air I get, the more plentiful the hot liquid running along his face grows. Desperate, I plunge my fingers into his eyes and he retaliates by finally releasing my neck and kneeing my so hard in the stomach I'm thrown away from him.

The moment I hit the water I jerk back to the surface, reeling for air. And my first thought is, _Where's Peeta? _I hear shouting. There is Johanna's voice, encouraging. The loudly splashing noise I follow with my eyes, seeing Finnick and Enorbaria locked into a aquatic combat.

I feel someone grasp me by the shoulders, and I whirl around, ready to face Gloss. Instead it's Peeta. He swims lamely, one side lacking, mouth barely above the surface. I pull myself against him. Together we struggle to the nearest wall that the light of the crystals enable us to see. "How are you?" he asks.

"Fine," I pant in return. I can feel the bruises already forming and throbbing around my throat. One of my hands and arms are completely useless, but for odd reasons I do not feel too fevered to think. Maybe it is that the scratch was not near any major blood supply for my brain. Beetee's was on his neck just as my first wound had been, and Johanna's had been on the inner thigh. All near major veins, or arteries, one of those. "Fine," I repeat, hoping to convince both him and myself.

One scan of the room tells me all is chaos. Beetee is having a hard time hauling a limp and mumbling Johanna toward the natural waterfall across the way. They are some fifty feet away from it, using the wall to help them along. Peeta and I are about a hundred more feet from it, while Finnick and Enorbaria struggle in the middle of the water. I can't tell who has the upper hand, only that both their techniques seem to be dunk, dunk, dunk.

Peeta points to Gloss, who has just pulled himself out of the water onto the land near the knee-high tunnel. "Leave him," I say. I can breathe again. I begin to urge Peeta toward the natural waterfall after Beetee and Johanna.

"What about Finnick?"

"I'll figure something out."

Peeta is loosing color in his face. We both have a useless arm and we try to use each other and the wall to make up for it. My mind is racing, throbbing. Finally I turn to him, an apology in my eyes as I rip the knife from his forearm. He tries to restrain the scream that escapes him. Without thinking I press my lips to his to swallow the sound, to make up for it. "Go help Beetee," I order and then push myself away from him using the wall.

Finnick is the stronger swimmer of the two, that is obvious. He doesn't seem to need that much help though he looks extremely grateful when we catch eyes over her head. I use both my feet furiously to keep above water and my one hand clenching the knife in my fingers for direction, steering myself behind the Career. I'm just there, when Gloss shouts her a warning from land.

Enorbaria swivels around to meet me face to face. Her long, brown hair floats around her face like a darkened pool of blood, the golden fangs in her mouth flashing menacingly at me. Two hands reach at my body underwater, but Finnick's arm winds around her throat, pulling her against him. "Do it," he says to me.

I think of Peeta when I plunge her own knife into her shoulder. She twists in pain, struggling, then weakening herself. Finnick kicks himself off of her and twirls around at the surface of the water. It takes me a moment longer to swim after him. He's much faster and reaches the waterfall first, lost into the mist with the rest of our allies.

That's when the water starts rising. Just when I can feel the powerful, stinging spray of the waterfall hitting my cheeks. Around me I feel the whole body of water lurch, and it's an effort to keep my face above the surface. I see Peeta through the mist, a hand of his reaching for mine. I grasp it and feel him pull me to him, my body lying flat into his side as he uses his other weaker hand to hold onto the uneven rocks of the waterfall's walls.

I turn to watch the Careers. Because it just seems too good to be true. Maybe we're wrong, maybe this waterfall isn't natural. Maybe it won't lead us to above ground. Or perhaps the water won't rise high enough to matter, we'll all drown of exhaustion..

Gloss has swam out to help Enorbaria and both of them know what's happening. At first it seems the pained Enorbaria just wants to wait underneath the other hole in the ceiling. Gloss disagrees and cuts through the water with one arm, the other one around Enorbaria's waist. They are racing the rise of the water. Already it has reached ten feet. Five more and then the water will have reached past the ceiling height, and they are drowned.

Apparently the odds are not in our favors today, because not only does Gloss make it to the waterfall before too late, but almost twenty feet of water later, and ten minutes.. I can see silver moonlight overhead.

Finnick, who has taken Johanna's axe from her resisting hands, tries to hold it up against Gloss. Enorbaria mutters darkly to the Career. Gloss though, only glares at us, through the spray of water falling on top of our heads. He knows that he can't let go of Enorbaria without her drowning. Won't be able to take all of us at once.

We stare at each other on opposite sides of the somewhat circular space. There's about maybe ten feet between uneven rock wall to rock wall. Which turns into twenty feet, then thirty, until the whole thing widens so much that the moonlight is so apparent it is almost blinding.

Around us, as the water rises us into a whole new world, I can feel the nightly breeze. I can taste the scent of grass and when I look upward, I see cliffs, jagged against the skyline. The stars are already out but they are nothing compared to the full moon floating overhead. I don't think I've ever seen anything so beautiful.

When the water stops rising I have only moments to take in the whole area. It turns out that the waterfall still continues from somewhere above us, off one of the cliffs that is some, fifty feet over head. Around us seems to be a world of rocks and cliffs, with small patches of grass or twisted, gnarled trees that have naked branches reaching for the heavens. For some reason I get the sense that we shouldn't be here, that this is not the arena. A strange, thrilling and terrifying feel of freedom flints through my heart as we break free from that tunneled hell.

Beetee is the first one to pull us away from the mist of the waterfall and out into what seems to be a large pond. It isn't much, and it must have been empty before the water started to rise from below, because now that it is full the waterfall's rapid flow quivers across its surface.

The sound of wildlife is everywhere. Frogs croaking in the distance, a lone wolf howl miles away. Even a flamed colored fox flees from a nearby boulder as my alliance stumbles onto shore. We're all in an awful shape, but I don't have to warn them against the inevitable Capitol interference.

Johanna speaks first, her voice slightly off. "We need to get away from this.." she motions to the pond. She eyes it with distrust. "They could send a.. something after us. Mutts from the water.."

"Yes," Finnick agrees. With one hand he has the axe and uses the free one to pull Johanna against his side. He nods toward the cliff where the waterfall originated. "We should get to the highest point. It'll be the easiest place for the rebels to rescue us."

Already the feeling of freedom escapes me. We are either saved by the hope the rebels will come or we are doomed to die because of furious Gamemakers and President Snow for having escaped their arena. I suppose they thought we wouldn't escape. There is no force field like in Haymitch's Game because who would have thought we'd escape those damned tunnels? I certainly didn't.

The trek to the cliff isn't too hard with so many rocks to hold onto and scramble over. The only thing I worry about is the fact that the rebels might not even show up. Or we're too late. And the Careers. They are no where in sight as I scan our silver stained surroundings.

Thirty feet up a rock slips from underneath Peeta. He falls forward and the hand he had in mine, nearly slips free, but I clench my fingers. I use all my strength to help him back to his feet and he smiles. "I hate heights."

"I hate underground," I retort. The heights are mine. They are freeing and full of fresh air. "Trust me, I won't let you fall."

"Okay," he says and we continue to climb.

Finnick and Johanna are the first to reach the top. And Johanna's girlish scream, so unlike her, makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle. "Snakes!" she says.

"Mutts," I hear Finnick correct.

I am five feet from the top. I could surge right over it if I let go Peeta's hand, but instead, I calm myself, and wait the extra two minutes it takes him to climb. Then, I see why Johanna shrieked. A huge pit of snakes awaits us at the top of the cliff. All of them longer than my legs and thicker than my thighs, wriggling around themselves. A hulking hissing mass.

Peeta pulls me around. "Beetee needs help," he says, too late. Beetee is the slowest climber, he's some twenty feet away from us at the top, and Gloss has got a hold of the man. There isn't much of a struggle on Beetee's part before the kindly intelligent man I've come to like is thrown from the rocks, tumbling some thirty feet back to the ground. He does not get back up.

Gloss climbs faster toward us. I turn back to Finnick and Johanna, who are inching their way around the pit of snakes. On the other side of the pit is the source of the water for the waterfall, a somewhat slim river, that leads somewhere beyond my sight. Basically, fall in the pit, face snakes. Fall into the water, take a tumble. Or then again, there's still Gloss who won't hesitate to throw us down the rocks.

"Katniss," says Finnick, he's returned to the edge of the climbable side of the cliff. He has the axe braced between his hands. "Normally I'd just let Johanna throw this at him, but she's already too out of it. Take her and find a way around the snakes. I'll fend off Gloss."

I don't want to let him do it because I can see he's doing this because of the Mockingjay influence. Instead I kiss his cheek and pull Peeta over to Johanna, who is slumped on the ground, staring worriedly at the snakes.

"Let me hold her, you find the way around," offers Peeta. I nod distractedly. He picks up Johanna and she clings her arms around her neck. She says something and Peeta looks so confused that I have to bite into my cheek to remind myself that the fever will pass her soon enough. She'll be herself again.

My current worry is the snakes. They don't seem to want to leave their little ditch. Some of them have raised their heads at the sound of our voices or maybe our scents. I don't know much about snakes. Only that once Gale had been bitten by a garden snake and my mother had said it was a harmless kind. These on the other hand are mutts. Much more lethal.

"Okay." I finally decide, I turn to Peeta and pull Johanna off him. "Jump it," I tell him.

He looks uncertain. The blood is still leaking weakly from the knife wound in his forearm. If it's hurting him, he's not showing it. "Better me than you, I guess," he mumbles. Peeta takes in a long breath, gathering his courage, then leaps.

The snakes seem to watch him with their gleaming black eyes, but only when he lands on the other side do they begin to move toward him. I'm hit with a surge of panic. I want to tell him to jump back. That though, would only have him coming toward them. Peeta backs away from them, and his eyes find mine. He has no weapon.

"Finnick!" My only option is to drag myself to District 4's side. "Help him," I say and almost instantly Finnick turns his back on the nearing Career and throws himself over the pit of snakes, going to Peeta's side.

It's a mess, I realize. This whole plan. _Where are the rebels? _They're not coming. A pain blares to life at the back of my scalp and it takes me a moment to realize Johanna has grasped onto my braid to keep herself standing. I lower her to the ground instead, careful of the cliff. "Katniss," she says, weakly. "Don't die..."

It is almost as if she's threatening me. Then her eyes are wide open again, awake, alive. She shoves me to the side and just in time too, because Gloss hovers beside us. I can't believe it when I see her throw herself at him, the two of them falling and rolling toward the waterfall.

They are all fists and feet, struggling for someone to be on top. I thought his extra weight on her would give him the advantage, instead she uses it to sink him underneath her, finally drawing the roll to a close. I scramble to my feet, readying to help her, just barely reaching them when Gloss puts his powerful feet underneath her, against her stomach and flings her over the edge of the waterfall.

"Johanna!" I shout uselessly. I can hear the violent splash below. Gloss rolls expertly back to his feet, crouched and ready to come at me. Everything has gone so, so wrong and I feel like pulling out my hair. Instead, I take that frustration and prepare myself to spring at Gloss, only to be stopped by the axe that flies out of no where and splits open District 1's face.

_Finnick_. Landing painfully onto my knees, my face swings around to find Finnick and Peeta teetering on the edge of the small river that leads to the waterfall. The snakes are closing in around them, though a few have been killed and chopped to pieces. Their innards running red and black in the moonlight.

Peeta looks at me just as helplessly as I do him.

"Behind you!" he warns me.

Enorbaria, blood bubbling from her lips and a hand pressed into the wound on her shoulder is just clearing the edge of the cliff. She spots me near where Gloss' body lies limp and broken, and her mouth twist into a grimace-like smile. "Where are you going to run?" she asks, no one in particular.

The woman starts stumbling toward me. I don't know what to do. What am I suppose to do? How could I help Peeta? The snakes chorus of hissing and slithering, their large bodies hitting the ground with a _thud_, makes my head spin. I almost don't feel it when Enorbaria's fingernails curl into my shoulders. Nor do I hear the words Peeta and Finnick are shouting. I can't make my feet work no matter what I do, so my weight draws both me and Enorbaria backward, toward Gloss' corpse. We trip over it easily, and she slams into my chest. Our rolling bodies are struggling to untangle when I feel the water against my skin.

As I'm falling, for a moment, I think I see a hovercraft materialize in the sky. Then the water rushes up to meet my fall with such a force, my head is sent whirling into black unconsciousness and the depths of the pond swallow me.


	22. Chapter Twentytwo

**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**

A/N: Hooray! We are finally finished. Check out the next installment of this story on my profile. For old times sake or if you'd been waiting for the end to review, I would really appreciate if you left something for me to read in return. -Taryn(:

Forgive the medical things I've added. My beta pressured me into it; to make it realistic. Sorry if it 'disturbs' you. Grow up, or accept reality. MEDICAL ACCURACY. Embrace it.

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><p>Chapter Twenty-Two<p>

Everything seems surreal. There is a bone-deep cold and wetness clinging to my skin and I'm trembling so much that I feel like the last leaf clinging to a branch in the middle of winter, desperately facing the wind. Except my wind is in the form of the hands I feel touching me, lifting me from the hard ground.

I want to move, speak, ask questions, but I'm frozen, helpless to do anything but fervently hope that these are the rebels finally come. That Peeta is somewhere nearby. Even when I try to open my eyes I can not, they are lead coated, heavily shut and refusing to even to do the briefest flicker.

Yet, my body slouches against the people's hands like a puddle of rain. My nerves tingling with exhaustion, my muscles nothing but a pile of kneaded dough. I still have my other sense though; I can taste an overwhelming smell of metal and bleach. The hands, though rough are swift, and have thrown me onto a softer surface. A cot, I realize, my fingertips shifting across its sheets.

A doctor, mouth covered with a mask and primed sharply in surgical robes, pries open one of my eyelids, flashing a light across my face. Some sort of mewling sound escapes my lips to show my displeasure. My body, suddenly a little lighter, twists and withers to the side, meaning to get away from all the foreign touches. _No, _I think, _not me, the others. Peeta's arm.. _

The doctors won't have any of that though. I feel a sharp stab at the crook of my elbow and in moments my pounding heart slows to a quiet gallop. My thoughts grow foggy. And just before I slip back into unconsciousness I feel someone putting a tube down my throat.

When I swim back to consciousness, I can feel I'm lying on a padded table. There's the pinching sensation of tubes in my left arm. I'm still largely unable to move, open my eyelids, raise my head. But my right arm has regained a little motion. It flops across my body, feeling like a flipper, no, something less animated, like a club. I have no real motor coordination, no proof that I even still have fingers. Yet I manage to swing my arm around until I rip the tubes out. A beeping sound goes off but I can't stay awake to find out who it will summon.

The next time I surface, my hands are tied down to the table, the tubes back in my arm. As are my legs and hips, all strapped down by leather bands. I can open my eyes and lift my head slightly, now. Still retaining some, if any, freedom. I'm in a large room with a low ceiling and that seems misty by the silvery light hanging overhead. By turning my head to the left and right I can see there are two rows of beds facing each other on both sides of the room. I can hear the breathing of what I assume are my fellow victors. Directly across from me I see Johanna with about ten different machines hooked up to her. _She's still alive, _I think, then realize, _of course she is. _We hit the water at the same distance. If I survived it, with Enorbaria on top of me, Johanna would have as well. Then again the rebels must have been hard-pressed to pull us from the water before we drowned.

My neck begins to ache the more I hold it up, trying to get a look at all the other beds. If I'm correct there is no one else here but us. Then my head gets too heavy to hold and it slams back hard on the table. I go out again, unintentionally.

In the time of unconsciousness, I being to find myself within dreams. Most of them are too vague to remember or repeats of memories I hold from the past. Like the time my father first took me hunting, or when I brought Prim to the meadow and taught her how to make a crown out of flowers. They are light, sweet remembrances, at first.. but the third time I wake briefly to the strapped table is only to be dragged back under into darkness.

The dreams grow realer over time. Sometimes it is me, helpless, lying on the ground. Or I'll be sleeping in my bed back at District 12 and in the distance I hear a wailing infant. And I know that infant is wailing for me, but I can not seem to pull myself from the sheets, and the longer I wait the louder it gets. I know something is hurting it. Someone. _I'll come, _I try to shout in these dreams, but my mouth is mute. My muscles are nonexistent as I'm forced to lie on my back, staring at the ceiling, her loud scrawling cries tearing at my heart.

More than once I dream I'm in the arena again. The tunnels spinning around me, confusing me. I am lost in my dreams; always. I can't help but feel a bit like they're trying to tell me something. They're so vivid, so real. Even when those brief moments of reality slip in, I'm not sure which is which after long.

The dream I have repeatedly is of a beautiful hall, and on the far side of it is a little girl with stark black hair. She's playing with something, her back to me and I try to run to her. Until I'm intercepted by another woman. A dark, fey woman who smiles at me sweetly. Promises me that she'll watch my daughter. I don't quite accept that, of course. Too stubborn to allow it.

And every time I try to push passed said woman, the dream slips from my fingers.

Only, finally, I get passed her. It is an immense effort to do. A struggle of a thousand pounds to stay planted in that dream, in that hall. I push around the woman and the little girl, as if sensing my presence turns her head. _"Mummy!"_ she exclaims as gleefully as any four year old can, but almost instantly that word, her voice rips me from my sleep, and I jerk myself, truly, fully awake for the first time in a long time.

I would have been pulled into the sitting position by the jerk if not for the restraints that are still there. But I wiggle my hand and find I have fingers that can move at my command again. For a minute I just lay, staring at the ceiling. A handful of the dreams I've had recently flash through my mind, rewinding, until I find those last few minutes in the arena. They blur by, leaving me feeling desolate, and aching to the very pit of my being.

So many glimmers of it are unclear that I'm not sure what's real. Did we really make it out of there? Had I really thrown Peeta down the vertical tunnel? Was the sight of the streaking moon, a stark line across the horizon, an illusion, or something I caught as the water pulled me deeper into its depth?

Frustrated, raw with emotion and without any answers, I fight the restraints. I throw myself against them. Pangs of sensitivity on my chest, arms, ankles, and hips promise savage bruises later in the day. Somewhere, far off, beyond the entrapping ceiling overhead, there is the prattling of rain.

I have to pee, I realize. Except I have this very irritating feeling in my center already. Something that doesn't belong. I twist against my restraints, pulling my thighs together with the slack that the straps give me, but I find a tube running along my legs by this action. I wait a long time, my head too foggy to move, the straps around my shoulder disabling me to properly look around.

_Why am I strapped to this table? _I ask myself. I don't want to consider it at first. Yet, there just isn't any evidence to suggest otherwise. Why would the rebels tie me to a table? I rock against the restrains again. This time I catch sight of the machine at my bedside. The Capitol seal branded into its side.

I feel nauseous. _But how? _That's a stupid question. Of course they would have sent a hovercraft the moment they saw we tributes had broken free from their arena. And they did not pull me from the water to crown me victor, no, rather to make my death as slow and as public as possible.

I recall the doctors, the unmoving, all the strangers. Wouldn't I have seen at least one familiar face if I'd been taken in by the rebels? Yes. Haymitch possibly. Even Heavensbee, if he'd truly been in on the rescue mission. I should have known I was in the Capitols custody from the very beginning.

I wait longer. Why wasn't there anyone watching me? No doctors or nurses? Does President Snow just mean to let me lie here for the rest of my life? I wait so long that I begin to wonder _how long have I been laying here really?_

Eventually I can no longer hold my bladder. I even hoped this might have brought a nurse to my side, the fact that I'd wet my blankets, but no. Instead, the strangeness and tube reveals itself as a catheter. I'd seen my mother give such things to old people who live in town and can afford such a thing once in a handful of years. I'm not old. No, but I've been unconscious. _For how long?_

"Peeta!" The word bubbles from my lips. Where is he? I wanted so badly to protect him. Am still resolved to. Since he is not in this room, where is he? Surely, not dead. He must be better off than I am. Or Johanna..? Hadn't I'd seen her in my room before? It is a strain to check. There are no other beds in this room but mine.

I must find him... kill him now before the Capitol gets to choose the agonizing means of his death. How can I do that strapped to a table?

Lifting my head, I can see in my arm is not just a normal IV. Another, much thicker tube is attached to me clogged down its length with thick white fluid. Nothing else seems to be the matter with me, everything is in order, maybe just a little heartburn. In fact, I turn my hand around to find that the place where the jabberjay brutalized my flesh is spotless.

Nothing. No bandage. No stitches. No scar.

Would they really do that? Make me perfect again. Why? To what purpose? I feel violated, just like the last time the Capitol doctors chiseled out every flaw in my skin. Those were my scars, my memories, whether painful or laughable, to go with them. The hunting scars I used to have that matched me beyond just physical similarity to Gale. A slash across my forehead that could have served as a painful reminder to Clove, but also, the time I risked everything to save Peeta.

It makes sense to me suddenly, why they would fix me so completely. President Snow will be wanting to make an example of us all. Especially me. He'll want me to feel every ounce of pain when he inflicts it on me, so I need to be in my best shape. Can't have anyone pitying the battered girl that ruined everything because of remaining imperfections.

When I lull my head back to rest against the table there is the pleasing sound of metal clicking free and the leather straps restraining me fall away. I push myself to a sitting position and hold to the padding until the room settles into focus. My left arm jerks possessively away from the tubes, only bleeding a little against my stiff, cotton shirt.

I'm completely alone. Where are the others, then? Peeta, Finnick, Enorbaria, Johanna and...and...one more, right? Foggy images of a man in glasses staggering for breath, resurface in my memory. Beetee. Where is he? Where are all of them? Where have they taken them? Moved them from hospital to prison?

Someone is watching me, obviously. They've let me free. Knew I was awake. Again, I hear the sound of rain and then shudder when a cold gust of wind sweeps through the room, from a window on the far wall, just past the reach of my cot.

"Peeta..." I whisper. At the thought of him, my resolve to kill him reappears full force.

I slide my legs off the table and look around for a weapon. There are a few syringes sealed in sterile plastic on a table near the machine at my side. Perfect. All I'll need is air and a clear shot of his veins. I pause for a moment, untangling the tubing from my legs and ridding myself of it in a quick, estranging moment with a wince.

I'm naked except for a thin shirt and scrub-like pants, so as quickly as I can, my fingers fumbling, I slip the syringe under the hem of my shirt, tucked into the tight waistband of the pants and unnoticeable to someone who isn't looking for it. If the camera is angled from above, over my own bed, they would have only seen me hobble off my bed and grasp the table for support.

There are no guards at the door, doesn't need to be. It's locked. My hope of finding Peeta flickers and dies, a sound escaping my mouth, bubbling from the back of my throat; a wild, eerie cry. No doubt I'm miles beneath the Training Center or in some Capitol stronghold, and the possibility of my escape is nonexistent.

Just as this establishes in my thoughts a crash of thunder causes me to flinch. My eyes zone in on the window and I'm flying across the room to it, my muscles aching in protest. The moisture of the air hits me. Sweet and pure and clean. I blink away blurs, trying to make sense of the world plunging before me. Bars obstruct my view, imprisoning me. The spaces between them are barely wider than the span of my hand, but as I test the solidity of each slat, I find the two on the right side are loose at the nails, just waiting for a good shove. They give with a crack.

With a sense of being hovered over, suffocated by the camera, knowing the person watching me has just sounded an alarm, I jump into the windowsill, glancing over my shoulder and let my legs drop off through the awkward space into open air. Icy cold drops of rain gently slip across my face, devouring the dry stitches of my clothes. Just before I jump, I have the sense to look down. My knuckles whiten with the fierce grip I use to retch myself back inside.

_Where am I? _

Unsteadily I rise back up and lean out the window, taking in again the sights below. There isn't much I can make out. Only that it's at least a fifty meter drop to the ground, if not more. I stare out across the buildings sprawled in front of me. It's not the Capitol. The paving stones are too gray, the colors of life drained out of the whole place below me, only a few splotches of a serene green showing trees and bushes.

It has to be a district. Or somewhere the Capitol keeps people like me. _And the others? _I hope. No doubt I could have made out the distant high-voltage, electric gate confining this rain trodden district, but I can not see more than an building or two away, there is nothing except the diagonal sheets of rain.

No one comes even though I've broken the bars on my window. They must have laughed at the thought of me escaping that way. I check the door away but it's still locked. Even when I begin to tamper with their stupid medical machines and mess with all their supplies, throwing them onto the floor childishly, no one comes to restrain me.

After a while, I return to the windowsill. It's better than pacing, or returning to the bleach scented linens that cover my padded table. Watching the rain fall on the district has a strangely calming effect. Plus, the clear air outside helps my heaving stomach that is a direct result of the acidic odors. So I perch myself in the window, tasting the fresh air that the rain brings, enjoying the thought that I could cast myself down if I should chose. I would, now, if not Peeta still lingered in my mind.

The click of the door has me slipping the syringe free of its wrapping, clutching it in my fist. I don't turn, but remain with two legs dangling out the window. One of my hands is braced against the last bar in the window and my other is hoping that possibly the syringe might at least take someone out before I go myself.

"Ah, you're awake." As if he didn't know. As though he hadn't been the one who ordered the restraints to release me.

I know I should reply. My mind grapples to make sense, still battling fatigue from the Hunger Games and those dreams. I force my lips to part, despite the surge of loathing and fear in my chest. "Where is he?" I say, harshly, my voice ragged. "Where's Peeta?"

"Please, Miss Everdeen let's have some civility," President Snow says. "Step down from there and have a conversation face to face."

Reluctantly, I turn and am hit with the nauseating smell of blood and roses. President Snow, same as ever, white haired with overly swelled lips stands a few feet beyond the closed door. He is unsmiling and his dark eyes, so much like those of the snake mutations within the arena, show nothing of the lightheartedness he had used in his tone.

"You are still weak, sit," he says, waving an arm at my cot. "Eat." I notice for the first time someone must have swept in before him, placing a bowl of broth on the table next to my padded table. In it sits a roll, saturating all the liquid.

My stomach rumbles and clenches painfully. I refuse to move. I stare at him. Waiting. "Where's Peeta?" I say, fingers contorting around the syringe.

President Snow frowns, makes a movement with his hands, and the door opens a few seconds later. A burly man steps toward me, and I step back, against the windowsill. I'm torn. Should I take the chance to streak out that door, hoping that somehow I'll reach a nearby room containing Peeta so I may kill him? Or should I just throw myself out the window now?

"Why don't you just put that down?" Snow says.

I shake my head numbly, defiant.

Before I reach a decision the guard lurches forward. I feel a pressure increase on my right wrist until my hand is forced to open and I release the syringe. The man takes it, leaves the room, and Snow settles in a chair beside my padded table as the door is closed softly behind the guard. I no longer have the conclusion to make. Only the window remains. My last choice. I cling to it.

"Do you know what you've done, Katniss?" Snow says to me. "Do you understand what you've forced me to do? What this country has been enduring?"

_No, _I think. I don't care. I just want to finish my job with Peeta. My dying wish was to save Peeta. And if saving meant killing him, I could do it. I don't care about what Snow's personal woes are. About the country. Even if I all that trouble in the arena was to save me.

I stare at Snow, uncomprehending. He stares back, at first calm, but slowly, as he realizes how heedless I am, his face darkens. "Who helped you?" he asks. "I know you could have never orchestrated something like that all on your own."

Orchestra what? The Games? Those last few flurried minutes of action and confusion? The Rebels? The whole rescue mission? Surely he must know that hadn't been my idea. It was.. who had Beetee mentioned? District 13? Otherwise, no. He can't blame any of this on me. I was going to play by his rule, I was going to let Peeta be the only one and crowned victor. I orchestrated nothing, but Peeta's survival.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

His lips press together in a sharp line. "I thought we agreed not to lie to each other," Snow says.

I don't answer, it's his choice not to believe me. Stray raindrops catch on the collar of my shirt, slipping in and down my spine. Instead of it distressing or chilling me, it has an oddly reviving effect. I feel my alertness going up. Steadily, the cold water wakes me from the stupor my time of inactivity, drugs, and surgeries have left me in.

Suddenly, Snow sits back, bringing his hand up to tweak the edges of a crisp red rose on the lapel of his white suit. "You _don't_." He's amused. "They were using you, too," he says, and there's a mocking edge to his tone.

Who? Using me?

"Do you want me to explain it?" Snow says, regaining his professional mask. "I have to admit, I didn't expect it. Took my experts quite awhile to hammer out the details, but they were quick enough to find out this Quarter Quell was infiltrated. They promised me when they changed the arena there was no conceivable way you could slip out. But you did, didn't you?" I feel a strange knowing that, those who promised such a thing no longer breathe, having been proved wrong by me. "No matter. We were quick to dispatch a hovercraft once you were out. Maybe not quick enough to beat the others there, but thanks to the odds, you were still there to retrieve."

"Others?" I echo, so desperately lost. I hated being at his disposal, with him having all the answers. I'm reminded of the last time I spoke to him face to face, in my own house, yet I'd felt like it was him who had actually owned it. The threat of his power swells around me just as frighteningly and overwhelming as the stench of the roses and blood. "The rebels beat you there?"

"Minimally," Snow dismisses. "We were able to strike a critical hit to their hovercraft before they escaped. Leaving us with you to revive."

"But.." I pause. _The rebels lost, _I think. _It had been their hovercraft I'd seen before hitting the water, but they were too weak to fend off Capitol hovercrafts, to claim their prize, me. _"I still don't understand much about these plans," I say, eyes thoughtfully following a line on the tile floor. "I don't know who these rebels are. I never.."

"You never disobeyed me? Yes, but we both know that is not true. To spare the confusion on your part, as I would like you fully functioning and up to date, listen close. Save your questions until I'm through, will you, Miss Everdeen? Politeness is something I, myself, treasure."

_Coming from the man who supervises the deaths of twenty-three children every year, _I think scathingly. Nonetheless, one hand moving behind my back to grasp the ledge of the windowsill, I give him a nod. And this is what he tells me.

There was a plan plotted behind his back to break me and as many of the others out of the arena from the moment the Quell was announced. The victors, that he knows of, from 3, 4, 5, 7, and 11 had varying degrees of knowledge about it. Head Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee has been part of an undercover group aiming to overthrow the Capitol, for how long he does not know. It was him who made sure the arena would work for us, but then was discovered and arrested only a day before the Games began. Beetee was in charge of blowing a hole in the force field. The bread we received in the arena was code for the time of the rescue as I'd found out. The hovercraft that was sent to retrieve me, just before the Capitol took me, belongs to District 13. Bonnie and Twill, the women I met in the woods from 8, were right about its existence and its defense capabilities. I'm currently stuck in the Justice Building of District 3, mostly so I'm efficiently hidden, and meanwhile, most of the districts in Panem are in full-scale rebellion.

Oh, and I've been unconscious for three months and counting due to a severe concussion I'd received upon hitting the water and the near drowning following immediately afterward.

It's an awful lot to take in, this elaborate plan in which I was a piece, just as I was meant to be a piece in the Hunger Games. I'd already accepted it in the arena, and even then it frustrated me. But to know the depths of it! That's if I choose to believe it. Though, somehow I know I can't be naïve enough not to. Staring into President Snow's eyes, I know where his amusement arose from earlier. I _was_ used. Used without consent, without knowledge. My supposed friends have been a lot more secretive than I'd thought.

"They didn't tell me," I say, my voice breaking in odd places. "Not all of it, not before the arena." _Odds, how long had they been planning it behind my back beforehand?_

"I suspect that now," Snow says. "Neither was Peeta, I'm guessing. Couldn't risk it."

My head shakes. Causes a few strand of my hair to loosen, falling into my eyes. I look at the floor, searching my mind for an answer. "I still don't understand," I whisper. "Why weren't Peeta and I not let in the plan?"

It is a question more for myself, than Snow, but still he answers. "Because they knew once that force field blew, you'd be the first ones that we'd try to capture, and the less you knew would have been best. As now," he says, waving a dismissive hand, "you are not forced to lie about the feeble ties of your loyalty, and I'm not constrained to other, less humane, means of finding them out."

"The first ones? Why?" I say unable to wince at his words with the strain of holding onto this train of thought. I'm paddling to wrap my head around the time that has passed. All that could have happened in that time frame.

"For the same reason all those victors in there agreed to die to keep you alive, Miss Everdeen. It is almost sad the way you do not see all the trouble they have went through for you," he says.

_But it didn't work, _I think. I'm here. The Capitol did get me first. _And I do know. _I think of Cecelia and Seeder and Chaff and my body starts to tremble. From cold or something far more upsetting, I don't know.

"I must say that the resourcefulness of the others to get you out of there was admirable," Snow comments lightly. "And still, you do not even seem to understand why they've done it.."

"What?" My head aches. I know why they did. For the rebellion, but I don't know.. what I can do for a rebellion really? What made them think I would help? Why save someone who doesn't even know what to do in such a wide scale situation? "I don't know why they've done it. All I wanted...no. All I _want_ is to find Peeta. I don't get what you, the Capitol, and the rebels want from me!" I say, throwing out my hands. I could feel a pit opening up in me; oppressive, desperate, scared. "Why are–"

"We want you, Katniss, because you are the mockingjay," President Snow says. "It is not something I like. And I take it, possibly, maybe they don't either. Neither sides _chose _you, it was you who has put yourself in this position with the berries whether you did it to rebel, or as a desperate act of love, does not matter. It matters what the districts believe." He shifts, eyes sharper, narrowing. "While you live, the revolution lives."

The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch in Heavensbee's hand, the cracker of those in District 8, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay. The one that survived despite the Capitol's plans. The symbol of the rebellion.

It's what I was told by the others in the arena. Even Peeta who acknowledged the fact that it means something more than just a pin Madge had given me. Though I never really understood the magnitude. Inside the arena I thought I understood it, a little, but in the Games things in the arena always seem a little more secluded than usual. I didn't think more of it, because I wasn't meant to understand. I think of Haymitch's sneering at my plans to flee District 12, start my own uprising, even the very notion that District 13 could exist. Subterfuges and deceptions. And he could do that, behind the mask of sarcasm and drunkenness, so convincingly and for so long. What else has he lied about? What more has he done to deceive me, unwittingly and like a child–_no_, not a child, a doll. Like I was not a person at all. Both sides, seeing me as nothing more than a tool.

I already know what Haymitch's lied about. I knew the moment Beetee let slip that the rebels had meant to pull me from the arena, aside everyone else, completely ignoring my own wishes. "Peeta," I whisper, my heart sinking.

"The others kept Peeta alive, I believe, because I think they knew you would become your usually resisting self if he died," Snow says, lightly. As if we are discussing the color of our clothes rather than the stinging betrayal of all those I foolishly trusted. "And they wouldn't want to leave you unprotected."

I stare at him for a long time. The building fury at Haymitch is wading into murkiness, with all those other things I can't face in the moment since they are so far beyond reach. Maybe, they are not even alive. Three months is so long. I watch President Snow and he calmly meets my gaze. It lacked the smugness that I expected to see there. "Where is Peeta?" I ask, fingernails digging into the wood of the windowsill.

President Snow casts his gaze toward the cooled bowl of broth next to my cot. "You should really reconsider eating. The bread will be soggy, and the broth won't be so fulfilling once it has gone cold."

Not here. I nearly smile. _Safe. _Peeta's safe. Nowhere near the Capitol's torturing tools and methods. Neither will I be, the second my body makes contact with the ground beyond the window.

I move, swiftly enough that he won't be able to send someone in to stop me, onto the white-wood and my feet fall past the space opened up by the broken bars. The wind feels freeing, cool and refreshing. It washes away the gut retching smells that Snow brings with his presence. For a moment I remember what I had said to Peeta about loving heights. I'm just about to let myself slip over the ledge, the water guiding my fall, when Snow's voice calls after me.

"You wouldn't do that," President Snow says.

Why? "Because I'm the mockingjay?" I say savagely back, unable to hold it back. "I'm the mockingjay and it's too hard to keep my alive as it is already, right? Am I right?"

"How would Peeta feel?" he says dauntingly back.

Well, I don't know. I would rather have him thrown from a window than to endure the Capitol's wrath. Would he want the same for me? I can hardly dispute anything about that question. Would I really want him dead? What I want...what I want is to have him back. But I'll never get him back now. Even if the rebel forces could somehow overthrow the Capitol, I can be sure that President Snow's last act would be to cut my throat. No. I will never get him back. So then dead is best...for me.

If I'm dead I won't be bait for anyone. They can't torture me, or distort my mind. The pain can end now, knowing Peeta is at least safer in the hands of the rebels. I can die with the merciful knowledge that Peeta's safe. My mission is complete and since I've already signed off on life, it's not hard to reach this final choice.

My death could still save him, in different ways. He's so stubborn he might still hope there's a way to get me back. If he gives up now, maybe Peeta will be allowed to live. Not as a free person but as an Avox or something, waiting on the future tributes of District 12. Then maybe he could find someway to escape. If it can't help, no matter. It's enough to die of spite. To punish Haymitch, who, of all people in this rotting world, has turned Peeta and me into pieces of his Game. I trusted him. I put what was precious in Haymitch's hands. And he has betrayed me.

In retrospect that was a horrid way to stop me from leaping. If anything, it has compelled me to do it more and I expect to hear some desperation in President Snow's voice when he speaks next, or at least the sound of the guards he's signaled for, instead I get nothing but his indisputable calmness.

"You wouldn't do that," he repeats. "Not with the baby to think about."

I choke on my breath. _The baby. _I stop all together for a moment, going rigid. The baby? What baby? Surely not my baby? I see one of my dreams again. The wailing, screaming infant who needed me and I just laid there. With one hand grasping the brick wall on the exterior of the building, I drop another hand to my stomach. Somehow I'd not realized the weight I've gained, or rather the slightly thicker span of my waist. The small, soft ball I feel when pushing down on my stomach. But maybe that's just a trick. Snow could have just made it seem.. and what do I know about anything? So I gained weight? That can't.. and that night, our night before the Quell began.

I'm drenched from the rain because I sit there so long, indecisive. Snow lets out a low, nearly inaudible sound of delectation as a crushing realization hits me.

Peeta may be safe, hidden within the ranks of the rebels and, perhaps, with the luck of all the odds, it'll be impossible for Snow to ever reach him. Him; his sanity, his life, and his being will be free from corruption. Peeta can not become a leverage over my head. Won't be bait and used heedlessly for the uses of the Capitol's game.

But our baby will. I know for certain, now, of this fact because the tone of voice Snow used. He has _made _sure I am pregnant. Did he have the window open waiting for me to wake, just so he could catch me in this position? To stunt me so completely with my worst nightmare at the best possible moment.

I had refused to see this before. I can't seem to wrap my head around it, just the same as everything else President Snow has thrown at me. Out of everything it seems amusing that I can accept this one first; that a child is growing inside of me. I'm shaking and I find myself unable to find it in myself to move or do anything. I might have cried, but I was too tired to even do that. I was exhausted from trying so hard to live. To survive. Maybe this was a sign, a sign to just give up. Yet, I knew better than that.

I don't know what my family would say to me. I imagine my mother would be disappointed. Gale furious and Prim ecstatic. But Gale would be so much angrier to hear that I was giving up. I know I won't. If anything this will cause me to fight harder. To reach some sort of future where the child could live on without fear and horror. Which only swings around to the thought that maybe it'll be better off dead, too. Like me, better off dead than used against the rebels.

Kill my child? Mine and Peeta's child? Not only would I be unable to forgive myself, but Peeta surely would me livid. At the thought of Peeta I pale. He couldn't know. If he knew then I would have no chance of him staying safe in the rebels ranks, this would be the final straw in his argument and he would justify himself in this way constantly.

Kill myself now. Kill the child now. It'll all be done with. I think of the white tube connected to my arm, _was it for the child? _I swallow back a retch of bile in my throat. It seems everyone is better dead. Everything would be so much simpler if President Snow killed me himself. Or I died in the arena. That way I could blame the man sitting in this room with me as the murderer of the child. Instead of myself if I throw us down from the ledge of this windowsill.

Again my mind surged at my thoughts with conflicts. How could I kill my child? It's innocent. It did nothing to me but shatter my courage and hopelessly tear down my chances. It is still a child, and if I kill it, I would be no better than President Snow as he murders twenty-three children every year. I refuse to be like him or the Capitol.

Imagining if I really went through with this, the jumping, all that my mind summons is an image of Prim. I see her in those few pitiful times I tried to teach her to hunt. She would cry every time I shot any living creature. Tried to heal the poor things, saying that if we get it back home quick enough we just might be able to save it. That time kept replying in my head until I imagined the look on her face if I ever told her I killed my own baby.

Finally my mind comes to one, final, question to answer; Is it a mercy or a malevolence if I kill it, myself included? Again, I find myself wondering why President Snow hasn't killed me himself yet. The words coming out of his mouth practically screamed he needed me dead._ "If you live, the revolution lives." _So why not kill me and put this all to rest? Cut out the middle man. Crush the rebels' hopes and display my body across the front lawn of his mansion as an example. The people of District 13 will draw back. Those in the district will realize that this is not the time.

But that's the problem, isn't it? The lingering thought that _someday_ it will happen. That another time will come around and it's only matter of another mockingjay rising above the rest. A more willing participant, even. And Snow doesn't want that. He wants this fire squelched to last lingering ember. Instead of killing the face of the rebellion, he'll manipulate it. Make it his own. I'll still be the mockingjay. Just for the Capitol.

I refuse to become the Capitol's puppet. To help President Snow crush the rebels will only end with me hating myself. Become something I'm not. Be the mockingjay that fanned out the fire I originally started.

I know I may never have the choice, again, and my fingernails dig into the rounded slope of my lower abdomen that I know must have developed within the weeks I have been recovering. My mind hazily remembers the time in the arena. Those moments, those few second, when I allowed my mind to think of such a thing. Was I really in denial? Could have this been avoided if I had only accepted it? It was painful.

I can't kill it. Cinna rushes in front of my eyes. I ache knowing he's probably dead. What would he say upon hearing? The imagine of Peeta, slipping his hand over my stomach, drawing those simple, silly shapes as he tried to reassure me in my state of distress. All those sympathized looks of the others before the moment we jumped.

I surrender. I shove myself harshly away from the ledge, smack against the ground, wincing. I'm picked up by the guards, carried to the bed. I don't speak, stop responding, refuse to directly cooperate or rebel. They can pump whatever they want into my arms. I never leave the room. The window's get re-barred a week later. There's a new screen on it, that I suspect to be electrical and it's been firmly shut ever since the first day Snow came to see me. I eat and drink, hold onto a fragile existence between helping the child, and shying from President Snow whenever he comes around.

He comes by to talk to me a lot, but I make all his words sound like the clicking of the spiders in the arena. Meaningless and distant. Dangerous, but only if approached. Whenever the words start to become distinct, I moan until they give me more painkillers and that fixes things right up.

Until one time, I open my eyes and find he's holding up something that I dimly recognize. President Snow stands over me, his eyes on the object in hand: a golden disk and chain, a locket with the latch open, the faces of Gale, Prim, and Mother winking at me. _Mine, _I think. When had he taken that from me?

"Hello, Miss Everdeen," he says, keeping a light tone.

"Stealing is punishable by death," I say. My voice is hard and hollow.

His lips tilt upward. "Yes, I know. I made that law."

I lift a hand for the chain dangling near me and he pulls it easily from my grasp. I stare at the faces that I have not seen in, odds, how many months has it been? Their faces gleam at me from the fist of President Snow and I suddenly find myself interested in life beyond my small room within District 3. I wonder where my family is. What the rebels are up to. I reach a hand further out and my fingers very briefly touch the picture of Prim. "Where is she?"

"Your sister?" the President says dimly, like he's forgotten.

"Where is she! What's happened to her?" My voice is raw, and when I try to sit up I tremble so much I'm forced back down.

"Well, you know what happened to the Hob."

I do know. I gasp, like always Snow manages to pull away my walls of composure. He surprises me at every corner, ten steps ahead. I saw the Hob go up. That old warehouse embedded with coal dust. The whole district's covered with the stuff. A new kind of horror begins to rise up inside me as I imagine what kind of things he's done to the Seam.

"They're not in District 12?" I ask. As if saying it will somehow fend off the truth. Did he just light it on fire? Strike a match and watch its flames grow? Then I imagine the sight of Capitol hovercrafts filling the skies above District 12.

"Katniss," he clucks. "I must be honest with you, we have a deal. I am a man of deals."

I recognize that voice. It's the same one he used when I was sitting at the ledge. Self assured. Confident. A blow he's waiting to deliver with expert skill and see my face crumble in response. My hand raises to block him out, but he tosses the locket to the bed, demanding my notice as my family's faces beam up at me. Mock me as they laugh and smile within those photographs.

"Miss Everdeen." I screw my eyes shut, willing away his words. "There is no District 12."


	23. Sequel

**The sequel is now posted! It is under the title "The Expecting Mockingjay" on my profile. **

**I want to give you a ****_HUGE_**** thank you. To everyone. The people who reviewed or viewed it. I can not believe I got up to a thousand reviews. I'm ecstatic over here. All day long I expect suspicious looks my way thanks to me ever present grin. **

**And again, thank you so, so much for reading and sticking this through the end. I accept all criticism. I know most of you must frown on my uses of the original sentences, but I'm not making this story with the pretext that I made it, but instead for the people of fanfiction who genuinely enjoy reading it. -Taryn(:**


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